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WAUKESHA - An exclusive I-Team investigation, "Dying To Get High." The heroin problem in Southeast Wisconsin is becoming a public health threat. We give you an inside look as local law enforcement takes down a major heroin ring.

You've never seen video like this. We go inside the drug problem in affluent Waukesha County. What's even more shocking is the key player in this ring is a single mother of two.

"He said mom, he said..I've been using heroin and i just.. it just was devastating."

The faces of heroin may surprise you. Who's using, who's selling. How much of it's in our suburbs and how many are dying from this drug.

"This all just started off with us buying heroin through one person," an undercover detective with the Waukesha County Metro Drug Unit told us. It all leads to a giant bust: Operation Great White.

The drug unit helped bring down a heroin ring that stretches from Chicago to Kenosha, Milwaukee to Waukesha County. Thirty people in all accused of selling or buying heroin.

Shawn Malvick is 23 years old. "Shy. He was so shy," Anne Flegler remembers how her son Shawn was as a child. Anne never imagined any of her four kids getting mixed up in something like this.

It's been a two year battle for Anne. At first she thought her son could beat the addiction. "Then I just started losing him again." Now it's tough love. Shawn is no longer allowed in the house. "I wish he would just be the Shawn he once was," she told us. "We lost a lot, and he knows that."

Shawn reportedly bought heroin from "the shark" of Operation Great White. A single mother of two in Milwaukee. When the Metro Drug Unit searched Christina Andrzejewski's home they found enough heroin to bring in $10,000 on the street. She now faces federal charges.

Next stop Butler and Errol Jackson. He picked the wrong day to do a drug deal. With the Metro Drug Unit watching, he buys 100 grams of heroin. That's ten thousand dollars worth.

As undercover officers move in Jackson flees but doesn't get far. Law enforcement takes him down. "It's always the same. They're always going to do whatever they can to get away."

After a nine month investigation the Metro Drug Unit is still rounding up dealers and users, but this heroin ring has been up and running for two years now.

Not everyone goes willingly when law enforcement comes knocking. The day we ride along, they serve eight warrants, all in the suburbs. Oconomowoc, Pewaukee and Jefferson County.

"To date, we've already taken off approximately 300 grams," the lead detective told us. That's $40,000 worth of heroin now off the streets. Operation Great White is the biggest ring some of these detectives have worked on. "It's the abuse of OxyContin. With that being so expensive people will turn to heroin for a cheaper fix," according to detectives.

These days more people are dying for heroin. In 2007, ten people in Milwaukee overdosed. This year, 24 people have died already. In Waukesha County 2007 saw one overdose death. In 2008, seven cases. The highest number in a decade.

And in this heroin ring, there were three near overdose deaths. For Shawn Malvick's mom, she now wonders if she will ever see her son again, "my worst fear is that he's gonna turn up dead. I think about it every day."

The Metro Drug Unit has rounded up everybody in this heroin ring, as of Tuesday night when Shawn Malvick and his girlfriend turned themselves in.

What's the most disturbing in all this is drug dealers claim they're amazed by what they call a "big increase" of heroin use in area high schools.