Charges: St. Paul police raid huge drug-selling operation hidden in modest house; $125K, guns seized

A man is charged with operating an underground business in a modest St. Paul house where packages of marijuana by the pound were for sale and stored with other recreational drugs until a police raid seized the hefty inventory along with more than $125,000 in cash and three guns.

Brian T. Krueger, 39, of St. Paul was charged in Ramsey County District Court on Thursday with two first-degree drug counts and six illegal weapons counts in connection with allegations he used the East Side home in the 2100 block of Bush Avenue as his entrepreneurial base of operations, complete with a U-shaped display case parked in the living room.

Kreuger remained jailed in lieu of $1 million bail ahead of a court appearance Friday morning. Court records do not list an attorney for him.

One of the officers involved in the raid said he had "never seen that quantity of marijuana in his 16-year law enforcement career," the charges read. Prosecutors suspect Krueger was growing marijuana in Michigan for sale in Minnesota.

Along with the cash, a shotgun and two unserialized "ghost" handguns, law enforcement seized numerous other pieces of evidence from what prosecutors called a "store and stash house" that had all the earmarks of an extensive drug-selling enterprise hidden inside the 880-square-foot single story home.

The glass display case "had large bags of mushrooms and marijuana edibles," the complaint spelled out. "Pound bags of cannabis flower were on top of the display case and in black storage bins around the entire living room. Officers recovered hundreds of pounds ... of cannabis flower from the store."

Four bags found in the store contained mushrooms testing positive for psilocybin, an illegal hallucinogen, the charges continued. Another $1,060 was recovered from the living room along with an electronic money counter in a bedroom, the complaint noted.

According to the complaint, officers were staking out the house late in the afternoon on Tuesday and spotted Krueger's rental car there. The officers, with a court-approved search warrant, made their move on the house, sending three people fleeing from the residence: Krueger, his father and a 37-year-old man with $6,000 on him. Officers believed he was there to make a purchase.

Officers knocked on the door, identified themselves and used a battering ram to gain entry through the unoccupied home's barricaded entry, the charges read. From there, they gathered up the drugs, money and guns.