The Justice Department on Tuesday announced a “major takedown” of a “multi-state heroin and fentanyl network.”
The takedown was in Huntington, W.V. — a city U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart called the “epicenter of the opioid crisis.”
“Huntington has become ground zero,” he told reporters earlier Tuesday. “The highest per capita overdose death rate for opioids is in Southern District of West Virginia.”
The arrests were ongoing Tuesday, he said, and wouldn’t necessarily end Tuesday either.
The take down targeted the Peterson Drug Trafficking Organization, and charged at least 15 individuals with conspiracy to distribute heroin and fentanyl in the Southern District of West Virginia,
Another 15 were indicted in county court Monday, and additional members are expected to be charged in Detroit.
”At least 48 individuals are targeted for arrest on various narcotics, violent crime and firearms related charges at the federal or state level as determined by the circumstances of each matter,” the Justice Department said.
The drug trafficking organization has been operating in Huntington for nearly 15 years, trafficking heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine from Detroit to Huntington, the Justice Department said.
The operation took at least 450 grams of fentanyl off of the streets — enough to kill more than 250,000 people.
“Our great country has never seen drug deaths like we’re seeing today,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “Under President Trump’s strong leadership, the Department of Justice has taken historic new actions to put drug traffickers in jail and keep dangerous drugs out of the wrong hands.”
[Related: Public divided over Trump’s handling of opioid epidemic]
