A repeat federal drug trafficker is headed back to prison, this time for 18 years, after prosecutors said he funneled kilogram quantities of methamphetamine into Burke and Caldwell counties and ran a stash house in Lenoir. Jeremy Donovan Dula, 38, of Hampton, Georgia, who previously lived in Caldwell County, was also ordered to serve five years of supervised release. Federal officials said the case tied Dula to at least 12 kilograms of meth and a trace amount of fentanyl seized during the investigation.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of North Carolina, Dula pleaded guilty on October 22, 2025, to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and was sentenced in federal court on Thursday. The release says an undercover transfer on November 6, 2023, involved a box that contained 3.821 kilograms of pure methamphetamine and 28.55 grams of fentanyl, and that a later search of Dula’s Lenoir apartment turned up another 766.8 grams of meth and $4,260 in cash. Prosecutors say those seizures and other sales tied Dula to at least 12 kilograms of meth distributed across Burke and Caldwell counties.
“Dula introduced an incredible amount of drugs into our community,” U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson said, adding that prosecutors “will not allow our communities to be turned into drug markets for poison peddlers,” in the statement. The announcement credited the ATF, the Burke County and Caldwell County sheriff’s offices, the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office and the Lenoir Police Department for the investigation, and named Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Hess as the lead prosecutor.
Repeat federal drug trafficker was sentenced to 18 years for distributing kilograms of methamphetamine. "This defendant introduced an incredible amount of drugs into our community," said U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson. https://x.com/i/status/2044894675669283125
— U.S. Attorney WDNC (@USAO_WDNC) Apr 16, 2026
How Investigators Say The Operation Worked
Prosecutors described a courier-style setup in which Dula used an apartment in Lenoir as a stash house and coordinated multiple drug transfers into the region. In one key run, law enforcement intercepted a shipment after an undercover agent carried a box from Georgia into Burke County while Dula followed in a separate vehicle. A traffic stop and subsequent search produced the bulk of the seized drugs laid out in the federal filing.
Repeat Offender With A Federal History
Public court records show Dula has prior federal involvement, a history prosecutors pointed to at sentencing when they labeled him a repeat federal trafficker. A 2016 federal docket listing Dula's earlier plea appears in legal databases, including Leagle, which the U.S. Attorney's Office cited in describing his record.
Why This Matters Locally
The seizure and lengthy prison term land against a national backdrop of growing meth and synthetic opioid availability. The DEA has highlighted persistent meth flows and poly-drug distribution networks, the kind of steady pipeline that can quietly reshape small communities. Western North Carolina has seen large meth and fentanyl seizures in recent years, local reporting shows, and officials say multi-agency investigations like this one are a primary tool for cutting off supply, shutting down stash locations and disrupting neighborhood-level distribution hubs. WRAL has previously reported on a major regional bust involving similar drugs.
What The Sentence Means
The court imposed an 18-year prison term followed by five years of supervised release. The U.S. Attorney's Office said the sentence reflects both the scale of the trafficking and Dula's federal record. The office also thanked its local and federal partners for the investigation and noted that the prosecution was handled in the Asheville division.
