Raids on at least three businesses in St Joseph and Andrew County were part of a much larger federal investigation into the growing synthetic drug trade across the country.

Scott Collier, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, confirmed that link in an interview Thursday.

“All of the operations conducted Wednesday were part of Operation Log Jam,” Collier said.  A map of operations conducted nationwide Wednesday does not include a marker in St Joseph, but does include one in Kansas City and several across Missouri.

Collier would not speak in specifics about the raids in St Joseph.

Collier is based in St Louis, working for a district that includes Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota and part of Illinois. He said in that area agents served 32 search warrants, and searched four other businesses with the permission of the occupants. He says those agents confiscated 115 thousand prepared doses of the synthetic marijuana called “K2” and 95 thousand doses of “bath salts,” another synthetic drug. Collier says, at retail, those seizures would be worth more than eight million dollars.

Agents also seized the raw materials for making the drugs, and $1.4 million in cash.

Nationwide, 90 people were arrested, $36 million in cash was seized and more than 19 million packets of designer synthetic drugs were confiscated.

There have still been no arrests in our area from raids conducted Wednesday at The Pursuit of Happiness on the Belt Highway, The Smokerz Outlet on Frederick, and an undisclosed location in Andrew County.

Collier says we shouldn’t read too much into the fact that no one has been charged.

“The lack of arrests is indicative of nothing,” Collier said. “We’ve been gathering information and collecting evidence, and we will pursue indictments when appropriate.”