Local News in Brief : North County : Police Seize Chemicals for Methamphetamines

Police have seized chemicals at storage facilities in Fullerton and La Habra that would have been sufficient to make $4.8 million worth of methamphetamines, authorities said.

The seizures resulted from an investigation after a July 21 raid at a methamphetamine lab in the garage of a Chino Hills home, said Jim Bryant, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said.

Arrested in the earlier raid were Edmund Leong, 31; Lea Marcum, 22, and Allen Peake, 34, all of Fullerton, Bryant said. The suspects were being held Wednesday on $500,000 bail in San Bernardino County Jail on suspicion of conspiracy and the manufacturing and selling of methamphetamines.

Using information gathered at the lab and testimony from the suspects, police this week went to rented storage units at Public Storage, 760 S. Beach Blvd., and Linkletter Storage, 901 S. Beach Blvd, both in La Habra, Bryant said.

In the first unit, police found more than 150 pounds of ephedrine, a primary chemical from which methamphetamines are produced, Bryant said. The substance, valued at $32,000 a pound, was enough to make $4.8 million worth of methamphetamine.

Police also found a 200-pound drum of thionyl chloride, a dangerous chemical used to heat the drug mix, at the second storage facility, Bryant said.

Sheriff’s deputies were assisted by La Habra and Fullerton police, he said.