Twenty-two people have been arrested in connection with what Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin P. Holihan called a “massive drug investigation” that spanned several years across Pennsylvania and three other states.

More arrests are anticipated as the investigation continues, he said.

The arrests took place on Aug. 28 in Lehigh, Northampton, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties, as well as in New York, Chicago and Wisconsin, Holihan said.

They are the result of Lehigh County’s 12th Investigating Grand Jury. Due to the confidentiality of those proceedings, officials are limited in the amount of information they release.

Holihan said the Lehigh County Drug Task Force was assisted by federal, state and local agencies to execute 26 search warrants at businesses and homes as a result of this three-year investigation. He said search warrants are still being processed on 283 financial institution accounts and various cryptocurrency accounts.

The district attorney said authorities seized well over $100,000 in cash; cryptocurrency accounts; more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana, large quantities of THC liquid, cocaine and MDMA pills; and at least 25 guns that include semiautomatic rifles and ghost guns.

The DA said two clandestine laboratories manufacturing illegal THC products were also discovered and dismantled by members of the Pennsylvania State Police Clandestine Laboratory Team.

Those arrested in the drug bust were scheduled for preliminary hearings to be held today in the Lehigh County Central Court.

In announcing the arrests, Holihan said, “An investigation of this scale includes the cooperation and efforts of many law enforcement agencies.” He cited them to include: the Lehigh County Drug Task Force; Lehigh County Emergency Response Team; James B. Martin Regional Intelligence and Investigation Center; Allentown Police Department and Bethlehem Police Department’s Emergency Response Team and Vice Units as well as patrol officers; Pennsylvania State Police (Troop M), Pennsylvania State Police’s Computer Crimes Unit; Special Emergency Response Team, Strike Force and Vice Units; the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotic Investigations in Allentown; the Department of Homeland Security in Allentown, U.S. Marshals in Allentown; South Whitehall Township Police; Upper Macungie Police and detectives in New York and Montgomery County.

Holihan said additional law enforcement agencies in Illinois and Wisconsin were instrumental in taking suspects into custody and initiating extradition proceedings.

He said the investigation was made possible with funding from the Liberty Mid-Atlantic High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Initiative.