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The rapper, whose real name is Willie Junior Maxwell II, was arrested Thursday by FBI agents at Citi Field.
An indictment was unsealed in Central Islip federal court Friday, Oct. 29, charging six men with conspiring to distribute and possess controlled substances, including five of them also charged for using weapons in connection to drug trafficking.
The six men distributed more than 100 kilograms of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and crack cocaine across Long Island and New Jersey between June 2019 and June 2020, US Attorney Breon Peace said.
Those charged include:
- Anthony Leonardi, age 47, of Coram in Suffolk County;
- Kavaugn L. Wiggins, also known as “KV,” age 26, of Coram;
- Brian Sullivan, age 26, of Lake Grove;
- Anthony Cyntje, age 23, of Passaic, NJ;
- Robert Leonardi, age 26, of Levittown, PA;
- Willie Junior Maxwell II, also known as “Fetty Wap,” age 30, of Paterson, NJ.
It is alleged that the organizers obtained the narcotics on the West Coast and used the United States Postal Service and drivers with hidden vehicle compartments to transport the controlled substances across the country to Suffolk County, where they were stored.
The drugs were then distributed to dealers who sold the controlled substances on Long Island and in New Jersey.
Peace said that Anthony Leonardi, Robert Leonardi, Sullivan, and Wiggins participated in the purchase and transport of the narcotics from the West Coast to the East Coast where they were processed, stored, and ultimately resold.
Maxwell, a popular rap artist, was a kilogram-level redistributor for the trafficking organization and Cyntje transported kilograms of cocaine from Long Island to New Jersey.
“These defendants ran a multimillion-dollar bicoastal drug distribution organization with Suffolk County as their home base,” Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini said. “They were wholesale drug dealers who pumped massive quantities of narcotics into our communities.
“As our investigation revealed, they would frequently use cutting agents to process just one of those kilograms of drugs into as many as four even before it was distributed to lower-level dealers, so the magnitude of this operation was enormous.”
According to the indictment, search warrants executed during the investigation resulted in the recovery of approximately $1.5 million in cash, 16 kilograms of cocaine, two kilograms of heroin, numerous fentanyl pills, two 9mm handguns, a rifle, a .45 caliber pistol, a .40 caliber pistol, and ammunition.
“As alleged, the defendants transported, distributed and sold more than 100 kilograms of deadly and addictive drugs, including heroin and fentanyl, on Long Island, deliberately contributing to the opioid epidemic that has devastated our communities and taken too many lives,” Peace said
If convicted, each of the six could face life in prison.
“The pipeline of drugs in this investigation ran thousands of miles from the West Coast to the communities here in our area, contributing to the addiction and overdose epidemic we have seen time and time again tear people's lives apart,” FBI Director-in-Charge Michael Driscoll said.
“The fact that we arrested a chart-topping rap artist and a corrections officer as part of the conspiracy illustrates just how vile the drug trade has become.”
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