WASHINGTON?Federal drug agents smashed a drug smuggling and distribution ring run by Middle Easterners Thursday, charging more than 100 people with selling common-cold tablets smuggled from Canada for conversion to methamphetamine.

Sixty-seven people have been arrested and another 54 arrest warrants were issued in Chicago, Detroit and 10 other cities, Drug Enforcement Administration officials said. They said the alleged smugglers, the majority of whom are from the Middle East, purchased barrels of pseudoephedrine pills in Canada and transported them to the U.S., mainly through Detroit.

From there the pills were sold to methamphetamine laboratories in California and Mexico, said Joseph Keefe, head of the DEA’s special operations division.

Pseudoephedrine is a prescription antihistamine used in over-the-counter cold and flu medicines that is also the main ingredient in methamphetamine.