DES MOINES, Iowa – It was a busy morning for both federal and local authorities, as multiple federal search warrants were executed around the metro in the early morning hours.

Des Moines police tell WHO 13 that the federal drug trafficking investigation started back in the spring and quickly grew, prompting officers to reach out to federal partners with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and federal agencies to help aid the case in manpower and technology.

This morning, at 5:30 a.m., police say around 200 officers were teamed up and sent to 11 different locations throughout the metro area to serve these federal warrants, hitting the homes simultaneously.

Police say they cannot give specifics of exactly what was found, but say they were able to recover illegal drugs, weapons, and stolen property.

“It seems like there’s an endless supply of drugs coming in to not just our community, but communities across the nation. So, we want to try and take out the bigger fish in the pond, right? We want to go after the people who are supplying. Sometimes we can’t get that far each that we want, but we can find the quantity dealers in this town and we can go after them. And that’s where we put our priority when it comes to these large scale operations like this, we want to get quantity off the street and quantity dealers off the street,” said Sergeant Paul Parizek with the Des Moines Police Department.

Sgt. Parizek said this investigation grew quickly.

“So there’s a variety of ways to get started. But our investigators hone in on that information. They find and mine through it. They find out what’s actionable, what can, what can we work on. We don’t want to be spinning our tires, you know, and wasting taxpayers’ time and money. We want to have a case that’s going to produce results. And then once they identify that, it’s amazing how the evidence just starts falling into place like a puzzle.”

Officials have released the locations that were served the warrants this morning, they include:

• 800th block of SW Ordnance Road, Ankeny
• 1400th block of Arlington Avenue, Des Moines
• 1200th block of Wall Avenue, Des Moines
• 2500th block of East 23rd Street, Des Moines
• 1300th block East Sheridan Avenue, Des Moines
• 900th block of Emma Avenue, Des Moines
• 100th block of East 28th Street, Des Moines
• 1600th block of Army Post Road, Des Moines
• 2200th block of Lyon Street, Des Moines
• 2900th block of Dubuque Avenue, Des Moines
• 3000th block of Gateway Drive, Carlisle

Before 5 p.m. on Thursday, Des Moines police announced that there was an additional search warrant executed in the 3800 block of 9th Street. The search warrant was served by the Metro STAR Tactical Unit.

Sgt. Parizek says that acting agencies are anticipating more warrants and arrests, and hopes to provide more information surrounding the investigation on Friday.