POLICE: Man used businesses to front drug operation
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DECATUR, Georgia (WGCL) — It appears to be an ordinary body shop in Decatur, but federal and state agents believe it’s the home of an excommunicated member of the Russian Mafia.
Investigators said 45-year-old Eduard Bobrick of Alpharetta was using an auto body shop and a meat packing business to front his alleged methamphetamine operation since 2020.
According to a federal criminal complaint, agents raided the auto shop location around 6 a.m. last week.
“It’s very little surprise in Atlanta, being a major transportation hub and it’s an express way hub, so it’s been a hub for drug activity for a long time,” Jim Langford of The Georgia Prevention Project Non-Profit said.
Agents obtained a federal search warrant when they identified the apparent distribution location – a 16,000 square-foot warehouse. During the search of the warehouse, agents discovered that the building contained a meat factory that butchered and distributed multiple types of meat products.
Drugs were located inside the industrial refrigerator which was also stocked with meat and other foods that were to be distributed to legitimate businesses.
Agents seized 11 pounds of methamphetamine, 400 grams of methamphetamine gummy bears, approximately 200 oxycodone pills, approximately 100 MDMA pills, 300 grams of heroin, 1 vile of ketamine, 50 grams of marijuana, $60,000 in cash proceeds, 7 fully loaded firearms to include 2 rifles, 1 money counter, and multiple cell phones.
Advocates who are still fighting against the meth epidemic daily, described what happens even when a drug supply of this magnitude is cut off.
“If you knock one down, another one pops up,” Langford said.
”It’s going to cause prices to go up which has its positives and its negatives but, I’m glad they were able to cut someone off at the top instead of getting all of the people at the bottom,” Frank Ernest of Navigate Recovery Gwinnett said Friday.
Investigators said this was the nucleus of Bobrick’s alleged drug operation that was supplying drugs to dealers in Dekalb, Rockdale, Gwinnett and Forsyth Counties.
Advocates said this raid acts as a reminder of the drug epidemic challenges taking place during a pandemic.
“People are not going to their treatment programs like they are supposed to, so we have seen a tremendous uptick in substance abuse disorder over the past year,” Langford said.
As of now, Bobrick is sitting in Dekalb County Jail awaiting a bond hearing.
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