A Mankato auto body shop allegedly has been paying some of its employees with a most unconventional currency: methamphetamine.

Not surprisingly, that's against the law, and the shop's owner was in jail Thursday awaiting charges.

Agents of the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force received a tip Wednesday from one of the employees at Clear Choice that the 40-year-old owner and his 39-year-old girlfriend were paying the employees with meth, said task force Cmdr. Jeff Wersal.

That evening, Wersal continued, each employee was given a half-gram of meth as a bonus by the owner's girlfriend in his presence.

Drug task force agents searched the business on Star Street, just north of Madison Avenue, on Thursday shortly after midnight and turned up used syringes with traces of meth and a digital scale with the drug's residue, Wersal said.

Six people work at the shop, not including the owner and his girlfriend, the commander said.

Wersel said the girlfriend has yet to be arrested because "we don't have enough [evidence] to charge her yet."

Authorities have been tracking the goings-on at the shop and its owner "for at least six months," he said. "And we've spent a lot of time on this in the past three weeks."

The business owner's criminal history in Minnesota includes convictions for marijuana possession and drunken driving. He's being jailed on a driver's license violation pending drug charges.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482