Federal agents, police charge nearly 100 suspected heroin dealers believed linked to a brutal and sophisticated East Side gang

Print By James F. McCarty, The Plain Dealer
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on September 18, 2013 at 3:04 PM, updated September 19, 2013 at 7:10 AM


CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Federal agents and police SWAT teams swept through East Side neighborhoods in the predawn darkness this morning, rounding up dozens of suspected members of a sophisticated and brutal gang of heroin dealers.

The police officers and FBI agents sprung the surprise arrests -- dubbed "Operation Fox Hound" -- after a federal grand jury returned a 191-page indictment that was unsealed today, charging nearly 100 defendants with crimes of conspiring to possess heroin with intent to deliver the deadly addictive drug over the past two years. Sixty of the defendants are charged in federal court; 32 are in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court facing state charges.

The law enforcement officers hit homes in the St. Clair Avenue neighborhood from East 105th to East 117th streets, arresting suspected heroin dealers with street nicknames such as Juice, K-Mack, Chase, Blue, Pringles, Weezy, Ditto, Israel, Buddha, Twon, Freddy Fox, Little Fred, Slim, Monk, Joker, and Chill.

More than 250 police officers and federal agents arrested 72 of the defendants. Twenty suspects remained free.

U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach called the morning arrests the "single largest heroin take-down in the history of Northern Ohio."

"This action today should serve as a stark reminder to those who would spread this poison in our neighborhoods," Dettelbach said.

Included among those indicted are "many of Cleveland's most prolific heroin dealers … and also some of the area's most violent," Dettelbach said.

The indictments were announced at the U.S. District Courthouse. A press briefing included Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Euclid Mayor Bill Cervenik, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty, Special Agent Stephen Anthony, head of the FBI's Cleveland office, and Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath.

The gang's ringleaders imported large quantities of heroin primarily from Chicago, Atlanta and Detroit via mail or automobile, the indictment said. The drug was then broken down into smaller packages and distributed for street sales through a network of local traffickers.

Wire-tapped conversations secretly recorded by FBI agents revealed that a confidential informant had infiltrated the gang's leadership, and since September 2011 had been cooperating with law enforcement officials.

The secret recordings contain hours worth of drug deal transactions, according to the indictment. The dealers employed nicknames, slang terms, street terminology, and coded words and phrases to disguise the true nature of their illegal activities, the agents said. Often they would send text messages or e-mails, and use cellular phones obtained in the names of fictitious or unaware people.

To bankroll their heroin shipments and criminal schemes, the gang members ambushed and robbed rival drug dealers and drug customers at gunpoint, and restrained their victims with zip ties, the indictment said. The gang members also committed burglaries and thefts.

One of the most brazen of the gang members shot a movie of his criminal exploits he titled "The Game," Dettelbach said.

"They're not big stars, they're selfish little people," Dettelbach said.

Before springing a drug-dealer ambush, the gang members often would conduct surveillance on their target locations, and share information about potential targets with each other.

"Co-conspirators identified potential robbery victims through word of mouth, by observing victims who appeared to have an expensive car or jewelry, by conducting drug transactions directly with the victims prior to a robbery, or by using women who would gather information about potential victims and report back to the conspirators," the indictment read.

The gang members conducted counter-surveillance of law enforcement officers, shared information about police presence in an area, and posted sentries to warn the gang when officers were spotted.

The gang also shared information about drug traffickers who had been arrested, and they obtained court files of the dealers' cases to warn the conspirators against doing business with the arrested dealers, the indictment said.

McGinty called the indictments and arrests the result of a "great cause to remove these bums from the street."

"Let today's raids and indictments be a message to those who want to capitalize on addiction," McGinty said. "There's a prison cell already built, the floor is painted, the stainless steel toilet is installed, and it's waiting for you."

The indictments came days after The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com reported that heroin has become one of the leading killers in Cuyahoga County, killing 97 people who overdosed in the county the first half of 2013. That's more than twice the number who died from gunshots, McGinty said. Half of the heroin overdose deaths are happening in the suburbs, he added.

A report earlier this week on National Public Radio revealed that a Mexican named Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, the reputed head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, has established a near monopoly on heroin trafficking in Chicago. From his base there, the cartel has become Mexico's dominant drug network, taking over key heroin distribution routes across the Great Lakes region, from Minneapolis to Cleveland and Toledo, the report said.
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