Law enforcement officers from Arkansas to California spent the last week rounding up suspects in a transnational drug-trafficking organization responsible for distributing hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine in central Arkansas, federal authorities announced Thursday.
Cody Hiland, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Justin C. King, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Little Rock office, announced the arrests in connection with a recently unsealed federal indictment naming 31 defendants on 53 charges.
By Thursday, the total number of people arrested on federal drug, gun and money laundering charges swelled to 23, they reported. Beginning a week earlier, on Sept. 13, DEA agents and other law enforcement officers arrested four people in California and 19 in central Arkansas.
Of the 19 people served with arrest warrants in Arkansas, four were already in state custody and two were in federal custody, the federal officials announced. They said that as of Thursday afternoon, eight people -- four in Arkansas and four in California -- remained fugitives.
"This drug-trafficking organization is alleged to be led by Eric Baldwin, 29, and Nicholas Robinson Jr., 23, both of Little Rock," the U.S. attorney's office said. Baldwin was already in custody when a federal grand jury handed up the indictment Sept. 5, but Robinson was still considered a fugitive Thursday.
The 27-page indictment named 23 defendants from the central Arkansas area, where Hiland said the drugs were distributed, and eight defendants from southern California, which is alleged to be the source of the drugs.
"This criminal organization stretched from Arkansas to California, and was responsible for distributing large quantities of illegal drugs here in our neighborhoods," Hiland said in a news release.
"This indictment demonstrates that our federal reach does not stop at the Arkansas border," he added. "If you sell illegal drugs in Arkansas, we will prosecute you. If you send illegal drugs to Arkansas, we will prosecute you. Our goal continues to be to ensure criminals pay a consistent, painful cost for hurting our people and poisoning our communities."
The investigation, which began last year and is ongoing, involved several law enforcement agencies that, under the direction of the DEA, attacked the drug organization on multiple fronts, according to Hiland's office. A news release notes that three court-authorized wiretaps were used to intercept hundreds of drug-trafficking calls, and that officers, from federal agents to local police, made more than a dozen controlled purchases of drugs, resulting in seizures of more than 1.5 kilograms of methamphetamine, as well as oxycodone and ecstasy pills.
The U.S. Postal Service also got involved when agents discovered that the group's primary method of getting drugs into Arkansas was the U.S. mail, the announcement noted.
Hiland's office said that more than 15 packages containing 13 kilograms (28.6 pounds) of methamphetamine and four kilograms (8.8 pounds) of marijuana were intercepted.
An additional 7.5 kilograms (16.5 pounds) of meth, 8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) of marijuana, seven guns and more than $25,000 in suspected drug proceeds was seized through other operations, including the execution of search warrants and state arrests, the office reported.
The organization used Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart wire transfers from Arkansas to California to pay for the drugs, DEA agents found. They reported that more than $250,000 was wired to California to purchase controlled substances.
"The wreckage caused by drugs affects everyone," King said in the news release. "No matter the amount of drugs they sell, drug dealers breed crime in our neighborhoods and are a danger to our children."
He warned drug dealers that "regardless of your innovative tactics," the combined efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement officers ensure that "we will arrest you and prosecute you to fullest extent of the law."
The DEA and the Postal Service were assisted in the investigation by multiple agencies, including the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Arkansas State Police, the Little Rock Police Department, the Pulaski County sheriff's office, the Benton Police Department, the Saline County sheriff's office, the Conway Police Department, the Faulkner County sheriff's office, the First Judicial District Drug Task Force, the Central Drug Task Force, the Arkansas Department of Community Correction and the Arkansas National Guard Counter Drug Task Force.
Assisting in arrest operations were the FBI, the U.S. Marshal's Service, the Office of Inspector General-Social Security Administration, North Little Rock and Jacksonville police, and the Arkansas attorney general's office.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens and has been assigned to Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller, who has set a tentative trial date of Oct. 22.
Metro on 09/21/2018