GLADSTONE, Mo. -- Independent convenience stores in Kansas and Missouri got a visit they weren’t expecting from police on Tuesday. More than a dozen law enforcement agencies from Missouri and Kansas executed 45 search warrants Tuesday morning looking for synthetic drugs, according to a WDAF-TV report.
The investigation began six months ago and included more than 100 undercover buys at stores selling packets of K2 or synthetic marijuana.
The raids Tuesday throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area at dozens of stores netted 24,000 packets of K2 and $100,000 cash, while police made 31 arrests, reported KSHB 41ActionNews.
In Topeka, police served search warrants at eight locations. Six businesses were shut down temporarily as a result, according to WIBW.
“I don’t think anybody knows how really dangerous this stuff is. I get calls all times from moms, dads, aunts, uncles saying that they’re kid got wrapped up in the middle of this stuff,” Sgt. Brad Dumit with the Kansas City, Mo., Vice and Narcotics Squad told WDAF.
He said store owners have continued to sell synthetic marijuana because they haven’t faced any legal consequences and the profit margins are huge.
“They don’t really care who they’re selling it to and what goes on with it, and they’re making fistfuls of dollars and that’s really what it boils down to,” Dumit said.
Jackson County assistant prosecutor Michael Hunt said he’s ready to go after store owners who have ignored Missouri’s 2011 law banning synthetic drugs.
“Most of them keep it behind the counter because they know it’s illegal,” he said. “A lot of the times when you walk in there, you have to know what you’re asking for and that tells you a lot right there; that it’s not out in the open anymore,” Hunt said.
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