FARIBAULT — A southern Minnesota drug task force has announced a huge methamphetamine bust.

Authorities said Friday that task force agents assisted by a Minneapolis police SWAT team seized just under 171 pounds of meth with an estimated street value of $7.75 million on Tuesday, and arrested four suspects who’ve now been charged. Five adults and three children were found at the residence.

Rice County Sheriff Troy Dunn, the chairman of the task force, calls it, “the mother lode.”

While the meth was seized at a Minneapolis residence, Dunn said the case began in January with illegal drug sales in Rice and Le Sueur counties.

The officers also seized a sawed-off shotgun, 1.1 ounces of heroin and several thousand dollars in suspected drug cash.