12 indicted for running violent trafficking ring in Alaska
Published Tuesday, November 25, 2008
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Stumble It!ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A federal grand jury has indicted 12 people for running what prosecutors describe as a large drug ring that trafficked in cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine and used violence, including machine-guns, to maintain control over the operation.
According to the indictment returned Tuesday, 27-year-old Juan Manuel Mendiola was the leader of the drug conspiracy and took care of the Alaska end of the business. The drugs were sent from Van Nuys, Calif., and delivered to nine addresses in Anchorage.
Prosecutors say during the investigation over 6 kilograms of cocaine, 500 grams of heroin, 1 kilogram of methamphetamine, over a dozen firearms and over $100,000 in cash were seized.
Christine Thoreson, special assistant U.S. Attorney, said the drug operation was sizable when one considers the many packages that were shipped to Alaska. The street value of the drugs has not been determined, she said.
The joint federal/state investigation determined the drug ring had been in operation since at least 2005.
Thoreson said the arrests have gone a long way to put the drug dealers out of business.
"I think that it is fair to say this crew was dealt a severe hit," Thoreson said.
Capt. Gardner Cobb with the Anchorage Police Department said in a release that "the community is safer today than it was two years ago."
Four of the defendants were arraigned Tuesday before Judge Ralph Beistline in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. The others will be arraigned in coming days, Thoreson said.
Authorities are still searching for two defendants.
The indictment says the drugs were concealed in packages and shipped to Alaska by United Parcel Service and FedEx. Once the packages were received, the drugs were sold and distributed throughout Alaska.
Mendiola allegedly coordinated and organized the drug ring. He also cooked the cocaine to make crack cocaine, prosecutors said. Diego Sebastian Munoz, 27, allegedly coordinated the shipments and worked primarily out of the Van Nuys area.
The drug dealers coordinated the operation mostly through the use of prepaid cell phones.
According to the indictment, Jose Ruis, 22, and Seirosa Sia Milo, 27, were in charge of receiving and shipping packages, which contained drugs, money and sometimes both.
Distribution was left to Milo, Phonesavanh Vongthongdy, 22; Timothy Ray Moore, Jr., 27; Kenese Sene, 35; Bernard Yamura White, 27; Miguel Robles, 23; Vaughan Erickson, 29; Harold Cogo Graham, 22; and Patrick Allen Osburn, 26, prosecutors said.
The defendants are accused of using intimidation and violence to keep the drug ring's operations from being revealed to law enforcement. In March, Milo, the only woman charged, ordered one of the men to assault another as discipline for violating "house rules." Thoreson said she couldn't elaborate beyond what was contained in the indictment while the case was still active.
In addition to two machine-guns, authorities seized a dozen guns, including numerous semiautomatic handguns.
Community Discussion
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What was the vioence referred to in the headline?
"used violence, including machine-guns, to maintain control over the operation."
I'm thinking that's what they were referring to.
Prosecutors say during the course of the investigation over 6 kilograms of cocaine, 500 grams of heroin, 1 kilogram of methamphetamine, over a dozen firearms and over $100,000 in cash were seized"
So why wasn't this group shut down years ago? Certainly didn't require 3 years worth of buys to have enough to put these guys away. What about all of the drugs slowly killing people that they DIDN'T get!
Was it crappy investigative work, or some Federal funding tit that the cops wanted that kept this organization in business for three years pumping their poison into our State? War on Drugs...what a joke
What a terrible headline. I first thought they were trafficking violence, ala Fight Club.
Twodecades - So true... So true...
Fact is, as another poster stated quite a while back, waging the War on Drugs is much like one of those hamsters running in a hamster wheel. They just keep going and going, but they never get anywhere. No progress is ever made.
Another "large drug ring" will take their place by next week (actually, they probably already have).
The War on (some) Drugs is simply not working. When is the American public going to realize this and stop the madness?
When I served my 18 months on federal grand jury duty we had a very similar case. If they knew of the operation months or years before hand, why did it take so long to bring charges was one of our questions, too. LOTS of reasons! Here are just a few: Many jursidictions and law enforcement agencies have to work together, INS, AFT and IRS, just to name a few. Then there's coordinating the "bust" of many individuals over a large geographical area. Not to mention dotting their i's and crossing their t's lest an over zealous bleeding heart civil rights attorney get his/her 15 minutes of fame.
The slime we indicted were all convicted.
Newsreader: I agree with you. No doubt the competition toasted the cops (shot up, snorted, etc.) and moved right in.
MrsS
This is one problem Obama could tackle. Legalize and destigmatize drugs, educate and support the addicts, kill the black market. Everyone wins, except the people whose jobs depend on the current failed system.
Roadtrip, you have to be kidding. England and several places in Europe have tried that. And their drug problems are worse per capital than they ever have been. About the only thing they even slowed down on is some of the violence, but just barely....this stuff isn't marijuana back in the day. Coke, meth and heroine make alcohol look like a Sunday school teacher. Rots a person out faster too, 5 years on meth will make you look like you've been an alcoholic leper for 20 yrs, Heroine will kill you by then, and cocaine will dig a cone in your brain to where you'll look and act like a rough 70 year old frontal lobatomy victim by the time you've done 10 years unrestrained! There again, if it doesn't kill you first!
We Alaskans like our drugs and we don't really care if anyone dies or goes to jail getting them for us.
good job. one more drug ring down,how many more to go? juan, i think i knew that guy.
The prosecutor claims they "used violence, including machine-guns, to maintain control over the operation" yet in this story there is absolutely no proof that any violence occurred. In the presentation to the grand jury, the prosecutor can make all the unfounded statements they wish because they are not required to prove anything--they simply have to "convince" the jury that there is a good reason to indict those they are after.
I have been in cases where prosecutors and police have stated that the mere proximity of drugs and guns automatically equates to violence, since "everyone knows that drug dealers use guns to protect their drugs and money". While this may be the case in SOME instances, it is not the case in ALL of them. To believe that there was any violence purely on the word of the prosecutor and the use of the "machine gun" buzzword, is pure folly.
roadtrip- hmm i agree, i think it would allow people to make safer drugs too, that would push dangerous ones to the fringe, and talk about savings on jail, search, seizure, etc.
twodecades- if you found one guy, buy could tell it's something bigger or an informant told you the size, you would need to wait until you had something on them all, which might take a while with them using prepaid cellphones.
You know, the cops could have arrested everyone of these idiots the day they opened up shop and sold their first crack or whatever, and someone like Twodecades would come along and say, "Why didn't you shut them down years ago?"
Could it be, perhaps, that they either didn't know about the ring or that it wasn't in operation "years ago?"
Also, I wonder if these bastards are in any way connected to the shootings on College Road not too long ago?
AlaskanSheila,
You might research your claim better.
The Liverpool Project reduced street crime in that area by 65%, and addicts (both physically addicted opiate addicts, as well as psychologically addicted cocaine addicts) often held jobs, maintained custody of their kids, etc. It was a success. It was shut down via political pressure; much of which came from the United States, whose business it was NOT.
Needle Park, in Switzerland, never represented a legalized market what-so-ever. Needle Park was simply 'hands-off' for law enforcement. Every where else in Swirtzerland the same drugs remained illegal, meaning, 'in the hands of the black market.' Violence over very constrained turf, continued black-market pricing, and etc erupted in Needle Park over time, as the whole thing was set up incorrectly. It maintained the worst of both worlds; continued control by black market of the commodity within the park, and the legal hassles of the prohibitionists outside the park.
The fact of the matter is that Canada (Vancouver), the Netherlands (Amsterdam and elsewhere), Switzerland, and a number of other countries are successfully experimenting with 'safe injection rooms' for addicts right now, and they're doing just fine; stopping violence, stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis, reducing the legal and social costs of a brain-dead and unwinnable drug war, etc..
I have a film of the Chief Psychiatrist who ran the Liverpool Project. You should watch it sometime. The majority of medical issues that arose in their observation, involving IV and other drug use, were -not- merely related to the use of the drugs, but rather to addicts not having training in use of intravenous syringes, and having (trash/cut) in their substances that came form the street rather than a clinic.
That program was synthesizing the pure heroin and cocaine at an average cost of $4.00/gram.
Bornnbred - why else would these people have weapons, if not to be used for violence??? They sure aren't out hunting moose with machine guns (it would be bad for the meat)! You CAN'T be that naive, can you?
Personally, as much as I detest the fact that we have drugs present on our streets, in our schools, etc., I would also prefer that they take the two years to get it right and nail everyone of those bastards, than screw it up and let them get off (which of course, leads to them feel as if they are untouchable)!
The War on Drugs may appear to be a failing project, but as long as any of them are being stopped, it is not a failure. At least there is an effort being made, because just as alaskansheilah said, these drugs are not harmless little drugs, they are killers.
You might wanna' contrast mortality rates, rather than living up to your screen name. In the U.S. -all- illicit street drugs -combined- kill only a small fraction of the more available tobacco, alcohol, fatty foods, lack of exercise, etc. examined in singular.
What your post DOES prove is that decades upon decades of nearly unrestricted government propaganda is effective.
Like one despot once stated, "If you tell a lie often enough...."
crazy: I never offered an opinion as to what they were--or were not--actually doing. I merely stated that you would be foolish to let your own fears, biases, and the words of a prosecutor to sway you when no proof was ever proffered.
As for the "war on drugs", it is pure rhetoric used to make you believe that there is some larger than life effort being waged. Your acceptance that as long as "there is an effort being made" with respect to the drug problem shows more naivete than you may have intended. Any effort directed at a problem must be a productive effort if it is to have any effect. Over the last 30 years this "effort" has done little to impact the overall problem, indicating that it is not an effective means to address this issue.
In the end as long as there is money to be made, jobs to be created, and power to be had, on both sides of the problem, this "war" will continue as it is not in the interest of those involved parties to end it.
Drugs arent going anywhere, and if a decent healthcare system isnt implemented soon, its just going to get worse.
And as far as making drugs legal, well, the pharmacutecal companies will fight that, they dont want the competition.
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