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The FBI used wiretaps, video surveillance, confidential informants and more to infiltrate the organization, which sold heroin in bags stamped with, among other names, “AK-47,” “Apple,” “Fortnite,” “Rolex,” “Frank Lucas,” “Bentley,” “Pandora,” and “9½,” U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
An indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Camden names six reputed gang members accused of conspiring to move more than a kilo of the drug.
Terryn Kelsey, 30, Jamaal Marshall, 33, Tyjuan Demarest, 40, Tieyesha Tucker, 26, Blaine Dorsey, 55, and Valarie Lamar, 60, all of Atlantic City, join 16 other defendants previously charged in criminal complaints filed by federal authorities last year.
Thirteen of the others have pleaded guilty – and, in some instances, provided testimony or information that helped the government make its case.
Carpenito credited special agents of the FBI’s Safe Streets South Jersey Violent Incident and Gang Task Force’s Atlantic City Resident Agency, the FBI Newark Field office, Atlantic City police, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, the Atlantic County Sheriff’s Department and Pleasantville police with the investigation leading to the charges.
He also thanked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration and New Jersey State Police for their assistance.
The investigation, Carpenito noted, was conducted under the auspices of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), which is headquartered in Washington, DC but operates nationwide.
The task force’s principal mission, the U.S. attorney said, is to “identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and money laundering organizations, and those primarily responsible for the nation’s illegal drug supply.”
It’s housed at the DEA’s New York office and includes agents and officers of the DEA, ATF, Secret Service, IRS, U.S. Marshals Service, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement – Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, Coast Guard, NYPD, New York State Police, New York National Guard, New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and local police departments.
Handling the case for the government is Assistant U.S. Attorney Martha K. Nye of Carpenito’s Criminal Division in Trenton.
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