A Lehigh County elected official is among nearly two dozen people arrested as part of an ongoing drug investigation spanning multiple states, authorities said Friday.
The county’s district attorney, Gavin Holihan, announced the operation during a news conference at the county courthouse in Allentown.
“This is a wide-ranging, as I said, multi-jurisdictional investigation, which included people yesterday who were arrested in the City of Chicago and the State of Wisconsin,” Holihan said Friday. “And there are warrants for people in multiple counties in Pennsylvania, as well as the state of New York, I believe the state of New Jersey, Philadelphia — so a wide-ranging conspiracy.”
Among those arrested is Lehigh County Commissioner Zach Cole-Borghi, who is charged with marijuana possession with intent to deliver and lesser offenses, according to Holihan.
Authorities took Cole-Borghi into custody Thursday at his job in Bethlehem City Hall, Holihan said. Cole-Borghi was arraigned and released on $50,000 bond, according to the prosecutor.
Cole-Borghi, a Democrat, was elected county commissioner for District 3 in the Nov. 2, 2021, Municipal General Election. Commissioners serve four-year terms. He won an uncontested Democratic primary to seek re-election this year.
Cole-Borghi did not immediately respond to an email to his commissioner’s address seeking comment.
Bethlehem’s human resources director, Michelle Cichocki, told lehighvalleylive.com on Friday that Cole-Borghi is no longer a city employee as of Thursday and that he had served as legal assistant and open-records officer with the solicitor’s office.
As of Thursday, the investigation resulted in the arrests of 22 people in Lehigh, Northampton and Montgomery counties plus Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, as well as in New York, Chicago and Wisconsin, according to a news release from the district attorney’s office.
Open for three years, the ongoing probe is the result of Lehigh County’s 12th Investigating Grand Jury.
The Lehigh County Drug Task Force with assistance from federal, state and local agencies executed 26 search warrants at businesses and homes in connection with the investigation, according to Holihan; additional search warrants were being processed on 283 financial institution accounts and various cryptocurrency accounts.
To date, items allegedly seized as part of the probe include:
More than $100,000 in cash.Cryptocurrency accounts.More than 2,000 pounds of marijuana, large quantities of THC liquid, cocaine and MDMA pills.At least 25 firearms that include semiautomatic rifles and ghost guns, which lack a serial number.
The Pennsylvania State Police Clandestine Laboratory Team dismantled two laboratories that had been manufacturing illegal THC products, Holihan said, stating they were within the Lehigh Valley.
Authorities did not immediately release the names of all those charged.
The preliminary hearings for those arrested Thursday are tentatively scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 3 in Lehigh County Central Court.
The investigation was supported with funding from the Liberty Mid-Atlantic High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Initiative.
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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
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