Union Street BGD gang targetted in raid on Oxycodone ring

Seattle Police and the FBI arrested more than 20 people in a Oxycodone trafficking bust that reached from Northern California to the Puget Sound, including the Central District.

Among the groups targeted most heavily in the investigation was CD-based gang the Union Street Black Gangster Disciples, the PI reports. Agents said the group was responsible for recent Seattle violence, but did not identify which incidents.

Details from SPD:

More than 100 federal and local law enforcement agents fanned out across the Puget Sound Region and Northern California today to arrest more than 20 defendants implicated in a significant narcotics trafficking ring, announced U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan.  Eighteen of the defendants have been indicted by the grand jury for distributing thousands of oxycodone pills in the Seattle area.  An additional six defendants were arrested for their role in the drug distribution scheme.  The arrests are the culmination of a two year investigation by the Seattle Safe Streets Task Force, operated by the FBI and Seattle Police Department.

SPD also published a list of the people arrested.

31 thoughts on “Union Street BGD gang targetted in raid on Oxycodone ring

  1. So. Any names or addresses of the suspects picked off on this sting? I guess one benefit of a crappy summer is that there’s less sh** going down then a hot summer when we are all outside. Remember CD folks, stay in touch with your neighbors, have them over for dinner or a football game this fall and winter and help build a stronger community so we’re prepared for next summer!

  2. Great work 5-0, this will surely stop people from illegally obtaining percocet. People like drugs and you’re never going to be able to change that. It’s time to legalize, regulate, and use the tax money to help the ones that abuse substances. The vast majority of drug users are responsible adults that use in moderation, but the news only reports on those that have mental issues that abuse drugs. If it were legal we could bring these topics out in the open and actually help people make informed decisions instead of simply demonizing anything or anyone associated with drugs.

  3. Ok, freely admitting I might be feeding a troll, but this is the BIGGEST paragraph of HOGWASH that I have ever wasted my time reading.

  4. first and foremost i doubt that the majority of these so-called criminals are “hard core criminals” they were probably simply trying to take care of their families in this rough economy. i really hate how people look at people trying to survive in this mean world as criminals. How many livable wage jobs are there out here? making minimum wage is not living. that’s living miserably and stressed out; wondering how you are going to pay your bills and feed your family. i know several working mothers and fathers that can’t even afford to put food on their table. if you truly want to combat illegal activity and help your community than use your energy towards getting more livable wages and housing we ALL can afford. day care costs are ridiculously high. and in response to Grumbo you obviously are disconnected from the real world because i know BOEING WORKERS that indulge in different drugs after and during work so it must be a choice that they want to do; poverty has nothing to do with it. its a choice and drugs will always be around because there will always be some boss, kid, neighbor, friend or family member that stresses you out and gets on your damn nerves. leave people alone to make their own choices in what they want to do in their life. and no i’m not a drug dealer i’m a REALIST!

  5. know the history of where you stay that’s NOT new information. they have been there for a long time…fyi

  6. Mr. Thizz is right about one thing. Legalizing would seriously cut down on gang violence in the CD, the Tri Cities, California, Mexico, Central and South America… How many deaths have there been in Mexico since their president launched the latest war on drugs? As to the other effects of legalization, who knows, but certainly the violence would be less and that’s worth a shot.

  7. All my friends from the 80’s are dead from drugs. Those who went on Methadone (and are still on it 20 years later) still steal to fund heroin purchases. They just use methadone AND heroin now. Most die from OD or Hep C or rejecting their liver transplant. We should make this all legal, so we can help people be so immensely selfish that they destroy their lives and bodies while betraying, scamming, ripping off and finally exhausting those who love them? No thanks. Make treatment free. Make dealing a huge offense. And to those who say that addicts live average lives, managing their use, not becoming leaches and criminals, I say invite one to your house overnight.

  8. “The vast majority of drug users are responsible adults that use in moderation” Clearly you know NOTHING about the plague of heroin in Seattle. Not only are most users not responsible adults, they will steal the metal out of your teeth while you’re sleeping, they will steal from their mothers, their children, they will sell their children and girlfriends, and then they will die. THAT is the heroin culture in Seattle. Take it from someone who has almost no living friends 25 years after heroin destroyed my social circle. What you spout is ridiculous propaganda. Ask anyone who has ever been part of the music scene in Seattle.

  9. is a very addictive prescription drug. I doubt few are using it illegally and responsibly.

  10. I doubt that there are any rational people that want to make all drugs, including prescription meds, totally legal without scripts. No country does this. It would be insane.

  11. I’m not going to speak for Mr. Thizz, but I think a lot of the argument here would be quelled by distinguishing between drugs… pot, alcohol, and other “recreational” drugs are not equal to “lifestyle” drugs like heroin. And that’s without even considering cigarettes, alcohol, over the counter meds, etc. Talking about them as if they are equal just feeds into the cognitive dissonance and does little to dispel the extreme positions, e.g.: all drugs are are harmless (which heroin clearly is not) vs all drugs are deadly (which pot clearly is not).

    2 cents – take it, invest it.

  12. My highschooler makes $10 an hour. my highschool niece makes minumum wage. My friend who cant afford food on her table works overtime 6 days a week @ $20 per hour. my friend with a business degree makes $16 an hour and lives with her mother. Where are all these jobs at Mrs.D? My highschooler has been looking for a better job since March of this year. Where are they giving highschoolers jobs @ $20 per hour? please let me know so i can tell her to go apply. and lets not get it twisted my daughters GPA is over 3.5 and so is my nieces. everyone i know works including me and we all struggle; single and two parent households. who wouldnt want a livable wage job? duh… you are not being realistic your living in a fantasy. step into reality, that’s where the rest of us are at.

  13. Heroin addicts in Seattle, the music scene in Seattle… sad, but a small percentage of the population and they’re mostly doing it to themselves. The war on drugs, the gangs here and everywhere – innocent, INNOCENT, people are being killed every day. And is it getting better? Is there any reason to believe it will get better? Is Union Street safer now that these guys are off the street? Nobody will replace them and you won’t be able to find Oxycodone in the CD, right?

  14. MS D you are right! Lets work to make sure this scum that was arrested are not paroled back here. the more arrests the better till they are all gone for good.

  15. Wow! The truth. Good to hear that your high schooler is making $10/hour. That seems like a really good thing to me. And your friend who has the privilage of making $20 per hour 6 days per week and another friend earning $16/hour. Do you realize how good they have it? Those are good jobs. Not great, but so much better than what others have. I really don’t see what is to complain about.

    Higher earning come from something other than acheiving certain credentials or time in life. Basic jobs like these are good for the majority of us that have some basic skill and want to securely pace ourselves through life without too much risk.

    I could quit my job right now and go out bust my butt and make alot more money. Problem is I hate working for me. I am a complete ass to work for. To work for me I have to work 6 days a week and catch up on Sunday. I’m thinking I might do it again for a little while, but, when I burn out and come back to the work force employers will have no idea what I accomplished or failed to accomplish. So, for now, I play it somewhat safe in the jobs market. I have found a position where they let me take risks. I risk their money and my job everyday. For that I get a bit better compensation than most. I can and am likely to be fired at any second. But, because I gamble, fight, study the enemy, study the problems and work hard for the solutions – I get paid OK and keep my job. I was happier on a daily basis getting paid less and walking away from the job every day – unsatisfied but happy. Now I am satisfied but perpetually frustrated that things don’t go exactly as I perfectly plan and explain them to the drones who get paid less and don’t know as much as they think. They get $14 – $28/hr + benefits to do what I tell them to do. They are chickens and rarely have any inteligent imput at all. They constantly think they should get paid more for doing dumb drone stuff.

  16. http://www.seattlelwv.org/, The League of Women Voters of Seattle-King County, Drug Policy Reform Forum
    The League of Women Voters of Seattle-King County invites you to hear experts, including former U.S. Attorney John McKay, Kim Marie Thorburn, M.D., and Commander Pat Slack of the Snohomish County Regional Drug and Gang Task Force discuss this topic.

    Thursday, September 6, 2012 at 7:00p.m.
    Downstairs at Town Hall
    1119 8th Ave, Seattle
    click here for directions

    The moderator will be Jonathan Martin, reporter for the Seattle Times.

    The effectiveness of the current drug policy, which places its emphasis on deterring drug use through punishment, has been widely questioned as a costly and ineffective approach. Proponents of drug policy reform have called for a public health approach to drug abuse, stressing a shift of resources to research, education, prevention, treatment and drug courts, as an alternative to the continued use of criminal sanctions. Is marijuana legalization a logical next step?

    This event is being co-sponsored by the King County Bar Association and is free and open to the public.

    Note: We expect a full house and parking in the Town Hall lot can fill up fast. Plan to carpool and to save a little cash, park a few blocks north at the Convention Center Garage on 8th Ave.
    click here for directions.
    Pick up a parking coupon at the forum and you’ll save $4. Allow yourself a little extra time so you can get settled and have a brownie before the program starts!
    LET’S WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK!

  17. Yes, lets look beyond punishment, lets contain them and treat them somewhere, hmmmm like the DESC JAIL Facility, and where? Ohhh in the CD where they came from, right!
    No neighborhood wants them or the violence and social filth they bring, long jail sentences is the only alternative with NO parole back here. We should not allow our selves to be guilt tripped into accepting what no other neighborhood in Seattle wants or accepts. Arrest them (Weed) abate the “grandma” houses and fill them (SEED) with decent people.

  18. So we should all sell drugs because drug dealers are really just trying to support their families? Which ones are even paying child support much less supporting a family? What planet are you living on?

    Security guard jubs in several places in seattle pay $15- $20 per hour, the lower for no experience, the higher for experience. There are big, big companies in Seattle with jobs like this. Also, those same big name companies (think anything associated with computers) also have food server jobs for $15 and hour to start.

  19. How does that large amount of pills become available in the 1st place? Help me to understand how a pill made in a controlled lab environment, under I hope tight scrutiny, become that readily available? There is a clear problem somewhere in this pipeline. Its not like its cocaine or heroin which is shipped in by all sorts of uncontrollable means and ways. This Pill is made in lab and then shipped to pharmacy. Then the patient fill their prescriptions. I have had back surgery and refused to touch those things but the doctors were trying to force these things on me. If that high number of pills is hitting the streets then Im left to believe that the problem isn’t the street dealer but it maybe the manufacture and distributor. This is a bigger problem than just making it legal, that does nothing to fix the problem. You gotta question why would a company want to make a pill that is the exact same as heroin in the 1st place? The problem isn’t the people they arrested. I tend towards believing that in this capitalist society they found a way to capitalize on this market a better way than the manufacture. They clearly had a market for their product, just like the major companies did. Those pills are made to be consumed. Thats like Snickers being mad at me because I found a way to resale Snickers at a higher profit. If this story would have been about crack cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. I could give kudo’s to police, but this was a huge waste of tax monies. Hopefully next time they do a true investigation and follow the money. The next street pill dealer business just doubled or tripled but by no means did this stop or do anything to improve life.

  20. Uppity – Some people live with chronic pain and others have temporary ailments that require pain meds. I imagine the same meds get to the black market if people fake ailments, go dr shopping and fill scripts at multiple pharmacies and sell them, steal meds from people’s houses etc and work their way to criminals who sell them to recreational users. Just because some people are crooks and do illicit things with these meds would you deny them to people that have legitimate needs? I think not.

  21. Correct me if I am wrong, but there is quite a difference between Oxycodone (commonly prescribed) and Oxycontin, which is referred to as a synthetic heroin. I believe most readers are thinking these dealers were caught latter, which is more sought after by abusers. Do a little research.

  22. “…As cocaine use in the US falls, prescription drug abuse has been on the rise, a phenomenon that Mexican drug traffickers may seek to exploit in the future to offset losses from a dwindling cocaine market north of the border.”

    At this point it seems to be other crime organizations originating from Florida and Georgia, but the Mexican organization is already in place and it’s likely they’ll follow the market.

    So, these drugs aren’t coming straight from the labs but from theft and fraud at pharmacies, as well as counterfeits produced in SE Asia.

    http://www.insightcrime.org/insight-latest-news/item/2987-co

  23. I am going by the news stories which indicate Oxycodone (most literature seems to treat the two as the same drug.) as the offering of the drug ring. I am not sure I would call Oxycodone a commonly prescribed drug. I hope not; it is very addictive. Prescription drugs are not necessarily used or sold responsibly and or legally.

  24. Re: Joanna’s thoughts about whether oxy’s are commonly prescribed.

    Every time I have had surgery or had a medical situation related to pain, I am offered/prescribed these pills. Despite telling the doctors that I DO NOT want it and CAN NOT tolerate taking it. It has been happening to me since 1998. So there you have it. Some anecdotal evidence from yours truly.

  25. I was looking for a rubber band last night and found two bottles of pain pills from when I last had my head worked on. Still there. I don’t even know what they are. My experience with pain pills is that I end up constipated. So I only take one or two pills when the pain is worst and then throw the bottle in ‘the drawer’. But it is just surgery pain. Not the dreaded chronic pain. Oh, one of those bottles was for Sciatica due to a disc issue. Forgot about that. I never took those either. Doing absolutely nothing cured that problem – mostly.

    Still – while I could sell the pills or somebody could steal them – the bigger problem is false claims, fraudulent prescriptons. There are billions of pills out there, more than a few busted up old men can lose.