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Dubbed "Operation: Hey You Guys" and "Operation: Roasting Chestnuts," the probes took aim at two separate but related drug trafficking organizations, said Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan.
"Roasting Chesnuts" began in the summer of 2022, when residents on the 500 block of East Chestnut Street complained to police about safety concerns due to suspected drug activity in the area, police said.
Neighbors were "afraid to leave their homes because they were fearful of the blatant drug trafficking, unending streams of drug buyers, and threats of violence with firearms, especially in the presence of young children," the DA's Office wrote.
By surveying the block and conducting interviews with are residents and suspects, investigators said they found a drug trafficking organization (DTO) operating at "numerous addresses" on East Chesnut Street's 500 block.
The DTO, they claimed, was moving upwards of $12,000 every day in marijuana, cocaine, crack cocaine, prescription pills, and methamphetamine.
Rahshon "Rocky" Rokins, the 48-year-old who detectives believe was the group's leader, worked closely with his alleged lieutenants to scout out and set up "trap houses" across Coatesville for drug distribution, police said.
Members of the so-called Rokins organization were "responsible for the distribution of more than one kilogram of crack cocaine per month to approximately 100 different regular customers" in Coatesville, authorities wrote.
Meanwhile, "Hey You Guys" kicked off in October of last year, when state police investigators say they uncovered a different DTO operating in the city. Allegedly headed up by 31-year-old Rodney “Gaff” Gaffney, the group that law enforcement calls the "Goonies gang" was "selling large quantities of methamphetamine," officials charge.
From October 2022 to February 2023, troopers said they purchased 6.5 pounds of meth from the "Goonies" in Coatesville and Lancaster County.
One of the 19 individuals charged, 48-year-old Brian Hawkins of Caln Township, is alleged by prosecutors to be both a lieutenant of the Rokins DTO and an affiliate of the "Goonies," according to the release.
On Jan. 4, law enforcement executed search warrants at five properties in Coatesville and Modena Borough, the DA said. They arrested 13 suspected members of the Rokins organization and seized "ten firearms, two bulletproof vests, and varying quantities of cocaine and crack cocaine with an estimated total street value of $25,000," police said.
On Feb. 8, six alleged "Goonies" were taken into custody in a series of raids "in Coatesville and the surrounding area." In those strikes, police said they confiscated "approximately 17 pounds of methamphetamine, 1.6 pounds of cocaine, 9.5 pounds of marijuana, 68 grams of heroin/fentanyl, pressed fentanyl pills, 1⁄4 pound of crack cocaine, prescription pills, MDMA, 9 guns, including a ghost gun, approximately $260,074.00 cash, a money counter, and a ballistic vest."
Police named 17 of the 19 individuals charged in connection with the drug trafficking investigations. They are:
- Rahshon “Rocky” Rokins, 48, of Coatesville
- Walter “Winston” Loper, 39, of Coatesville
- Larry “Bama” Williams, 40, of Coatesville
- Danquice “Queety” Shelton, 35, of Coatesville
- Nakia “Low key” Clark, 48, of Coatesville
- Donique “Nique” Griffy, 27, of Coatesville
- Sherena “Rena” Morton, 33, of Coatesville
- Shawn “D” Duncan, 41, of Coatesville
- Dianita Thomas, 45, of Coatesville
- Dwayne Beckett, 48, of Coatesville
- Ertha “Dirt” Flowers-Renshaw, 69, of Coatesville
- Dameon Nixon, 29, of Coatesville
- Troy Hardy, 40, of Coatesville
- Maurice “Poodah” Scott, 30, of East Fallowfield Twp.
- Rodney “Gaff” Gaffney, 31, of Coatesville
- Brian Hawkins, 48, of Caln Twp.
- Douglas Gray, 32, of South Coatesville
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