By Natalie Weber
Source Tampa Bay Times
Tampa Bay law enforcement agencies have arrested the leaders of a multi-million dollar drug trafficking ring that delivered narcotics and marijuana to the region in a semi-truck weekly, the St. Petersburg Police Department announced on Tuesday.
The group is considered a gang by Pinellas County law enforcement officials and has been connected to at least a dozen shootings locally. For at least nine months, they brought roughly $3 million in drugs from California to the Tampa Bay area each week.
St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway said the drugs were then distributed across Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties. Two Californian men involved in the drug delivery have been arrested, Holloway said.
During the course of an investigation spanning several months, St. Petersburg police worked with other law enforcement agencies throughout the Tampa Bay region to complete more than 130 arrest warrants and 130 subpoenas.
In the last two weeks, law enforcement officials have made 26 arrests and executed six warrants, seizing:
- About 1,800 pounds of marijuana with a street value of about $3 million
- 15 guns, three of which were stolen
- $360,000 in cash
- 7 pounds of codeine
- Roughly 1.5 ounces of crack cocaine
- 1.4 ounces of powder cocaine
- About 0.2 ounces of methamphetamine
- 0.6 ounces of heroin laced with fentanyl
- 252 BU Crystals, a stimulant that was mistakenly sold as Ecstasy or Molly
- 37 ounces of THC wax
- 8 vehicles, 2 of which were stolen
The main St. Petersburg leaders of the drug ring who have been arrested are Jacquez Dawson, 22, Camden Carter, 23, and Aumbre Carter, 22, according to police. Police said they are still looking for another leader, 23-year-old Jahad Perkins-Edwards.
The St. Petersburg Police Department worked with the sheriff’s offices in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Manatee counties, as well as Tampa and Clearwater police, the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“We weren’t going after the people on the street corner,” Holloway said. “We were going after the people that are causing harm to our community.”
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