Alleged members of crime ring with ties to white supremacist gang charged with drug trafficking
More than two dozen alleged members of a drug trafficking ring with ties to a white supremacist prison gang have been charged by a grand jury, a Monday news release from U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said.
Of the 27 suspects, 24 were arrested in Washington and Arizona over the last five days. Most of the suspects are from Washington. All have been charged with drug trafficking.
“This operation was the culmination of a year and a half of great investigative work,” said Richard A. Collodi, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office.
The Washington suspects are from Auburn, Bonney Lake, Burbank, Burien, Edgewood, Pierce County, Puyallup, Quilcene, Renton, Ridgefield, Seattle, Shelton, Spanaway, Steilacoom, Tacoma and Tukwila.
Many of those charged are tied to the “Aryan Family” white supremacist prison gang, the release said.
On Wednesday, Mar. 22, an operation involving ten SWAT teams and more than 350 officers yielded 177 guns, more than ten kilos of methamphetamine, 11 kilos of fentanyl pills and more than a kilo of fentanyl powder, three kilos of heroin, and more than $330,000 in cash from 18 locations in Washington and Arizona.
“While the dozen counts in this indictment do not detail every criminal moment in this conspiracy, it does provide one remarkable statistic: 48 firearms seized in this case even before last week’s takedown,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Brown.
Prior to the Mar. 22 takedown, during the year that the ring was being investigated, law enforcement seized 830,000 fentanyl pills, 5.5 pounds of fentanyl powder, 223 pounds of methamphetamine, 3.5 pounds of heroin, 5 pounds of cocaine, $388,000 in cash, and 48 guns, the news release said.
All but three suspects are in custody. The others are being sought by police.
