Petersburg police and a regional anti-drug task force said they confiscated nearly six pounds of marijuana from a two totes inside a barge shipment bound for the village of Kake. Sunday morning’s seizure resulted from an investigation by SEACAD which is Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs. State Trooper Seargent Christopher Russel  supervises the task force out of Juneau.

Russel said, “On the 17th, SEACAD received a tip about a shipment, a suspicious shipment, coming from Oregon that had been identified in Seattle and was bound for Kake. We conducted an investigation. We we were able to obtain a search warrant from the Juneau courthouse. With that warrant we we’re able to get into the two totes that were shipped directly from Seattle to Petersburg and would eventually be put on a different barge heading to Kake.”

Petersburg Police Seargent and SEACAD officer Heidi Agner searched the totes at the barge Terminal and says she found 92 ounces, or just under six pounds, of pot packed in plastic bags. According to Agner and Russel, that’s a lot for Petersburg or Kake. Russel estimated the street value at 50 thousand dollars. He said tips from the public can be a big help in cases like this.

“It’s just great you know we got a cooperating source that helped us out. Usually when we do get help from the public, especially when the person, lets say, doesn’t want to remain anonymous….what we would call a good citizen. That really helps us out a lot with these investigations. You know drug work is much easier when we have assistance from the public. And we always appreciate when people call. Even if they do want to remain anonymous, we still appreciate any tips the public is willing to provide, ” He says.

As of Monday, Police had made no arrests but Russel said the investigation was still underway. This was the second significant drug seizure in Petersburg this month. In an unrelated investigation with SEACAD in early January, local police arrested a 37-year-old man who had allegedly picked up a package from the post office that contained four ounces of heroin and two ounces of Methamphetamine.