Somewhat mirroring U.S. soldiers’ efforts in Saddam Hussein’s spider hole, Mason City police used a backhoe on Wednesday to dig up an underground methamphetamine lab. Police Lieutenant Ron Vande Weerd says investigators watched a suspect for several days who was making meth in a sort of concrete bunker near the city’s wastewater treatment plant. An off duty reserve officer was walking his dog last Friday when he came across the meth dump site, he notified the Sheriff’s office and they set up surveillance on the area. They ended up catching a man when he returned to the site later. Vande Weerd says this site is not like other meth labs that have been set up in the area.The lab was unique as it was set up in tunnels underneath the cement foundation of an old rendering plant. The area measured about eight-by-ten feet and was three feet deep — just big deep enough to sit up in. 41-year-old Wesley Dennis Russeff of Mason City is charged with manufacturing meth and is being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on 65-thousand dollars bond.
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