OCONTO, WI (WTAQ) – More details about the major meth bust in Northeast Wisconsin this week are coming out.
On Tuesday, 38 people were arrested after 20 search warrants were executed in three counties. Most of them were in Brown County.
However, a home in the Oconto County Town of Chase is where one of those methamphetamine search warrants were executed. According to court documents, Romulus Ard owns the home and appeared in Oconto County court Thursday on a charge of maintaining a drug trafficking place.
Ard admitted to using meth and other drugs, according to a criminal complaint, but he denies being a distributor. Ard told investigators that, “When you talk to anyone about meth it leads back to Bill.”
FOX 11 reports that is Bill Yang, 35, who was ordered held on a $500,000 cash bond in Brown County court Wednesday. Yang has not been formally charged, but his bond is the biggest anyone with pending meth charges has.
“The initial information came to law enforcement back in August and September of 2015 and from the beginning the information was that Mr. Yang was moving two to six pounds of methamphetamine per week,” said Wendy Lemkuil, an assistant district attorney for Brown County, while in court on Wednesday.
Prosecutors say the street value of one pound of meth is $45,000, meaning they allege Yang was moving $90,000 to $300,000 worth of meth in the area per week.
A different Oconto County case shows the possible reach of the drugs and how investigators tracked them.
According to a criminal complaint, authorities had been using electronic surveillance to monitor 31-year-old Rebekah Matel and 33-year-old Justin Rose. Investigators had information that Matel would go to Green Bay to get meth, and bring it back to redistribute in Oconto and Marinette Counties.
Matel was arrested and charged earlier this month after authorities followed her from Oconto to Green Bay and back. Court documents show they found about 57 grams of suspected meth in her car.
