Twenty Two People Arrested In Multi-State Drug Bust In Pennsylvania
When a story begins with the words “Democrat county commissioner arrested in massive drug bust,” you don’t expect the next sentence to involve ghost guns, crypto accounts, and THC labs straight out of Breaking Bad. But here we are — in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania — where local politics just collided with a three-year, multi-state criminal investigation that reads like a Hollywood screenplay.
Last Friday, Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan stood at the podium and dropped a bombshell: 22 individuals had been arrested in connection to a sprawling drug conspiracy that stretched from Pennsylvania to Illinois, New York, Wisconsin, and beyond. Among those in handcuffs? Zachary Cole-Borghi, a sitting Lehigh County Commissioner and open records officer at Bethlehem City Hall.
According to charges, Cole-Borghi was found with a pound of marijuana and was charged with possession with intent to deliver. The arrest took place at City Hall — the very building where he was entrusted with public transparency. That irony is hard to miss.
While the charges against Cole-Borghi may seem modest compared to the scope of the overall bust, he’s just one thread in a massive, tangled web. Authorities seized over 2,000 pounds of marijuana, liquid cocaine, MDMA pills, ghost guns, and even crypto accounts linked to the operation. Two clandestine labs were discovered and dismantled, producing illegal THC products with industrial efficiency.
District Attorney Holihan laid it out clearly:
“This was a wide-ranging, multi-jurisdictional investigation... warrants in multiple counties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and beyond.”
This wasn’t a street-corner operation. This was a coordinated criminal enterprise, complete with high-value cash seizures, semi-automatic weapons, and advanced product manufacturing. That a county commissioner could be entangled in such a plot raises serious questions about how deep this goes — and how many layers of local government may be compromised.
It’s easy to dismiss these stories as isolated or incidental, but public officials aren’t supposed to be standing trial alongside drug traffickers. They’re supposed to be protecting the community from them. When the lines blur — when public servants walk into City Hall with a stash of product and walk out with bail receipts — it’s not just a scandal. It’s a symptom.
The investigation is far from over. More arrests are expected, and the scale of the conspiracy continues to expand. But already, it paints a grim picture of corruption, incompetence, and criminal negligence at the local level — all under the banner of public service.