Seventeen people are charged in a drug ring that authorities say has been trafficking cocaine and marijuana in the District for more than three years. A federal grand jury in D.C. returned a 29-count indictment against members of the drug ring late last week, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Charges against the 17 include conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute the drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia, distribution of cocaine near schools, and firearms offenses.
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They have been distributing drugs from at least June 2008 until this month, according to the indictment.
The indictment doesn’t say how much cocaine and marijuana the ring distributed. Some of the trafficking took place near Spingarn Senior High School, located at 2500 Benning Road NE in the city’s Carver-Langston neighborhood, court documents say.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. said law enforcement officials in the District and Prince George’s County executed a series of arrest and search warrants early Tuesday morning.
Officers seized cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana during the raids, prosecutors said. Authorities also confiscated four vehicles, six firearms — including two machine pistols — and more than $600,000 in cash, prosecutors said.
“These arrests and seizures are the result of a concerted, relentless campaign to disrupt and dismantle the networks that fuel drug addiction in our city,” Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District, said in a statement.
Fifteen men and two women were arrested. Ten are from the District and the other seven are from Maryland, mostly from Prince George’s County. The defendants range in age from 31 to 68.
If convicted, they face mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years behind bars and could be sentenced to life in prison, prosecutors said.
The arrests stem from a three-year investigation by the D.C. police and the FBI. The agencies’ Safe Streets Task Force aims to curb gang activity and drug crimes by taking down entire trafficking groups.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said in a statement that the case was “an example of the efforts of law enforcement working together to make our communities safer.”
