Diogenes
Nemo me impune lacessit
Today the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania fired a major strike to take back the streets of Philadelphia in the largest federal indictment of the 21st century in our district.
This indictment brings charges against thirty-three (33) defendants in a massive drug conspiracy spanning nearly a decade, involving tremendous volumes of fentanyl, and all centered at the epicenter of the opioid crisis in the infamous open-air drug markets of the Kensington neighborhood.
An indictment is only an allegation, all Americans are presumed innocent, and the job is not done unless and until we obtain a conviction.
But we have sent a loud and unmistakable message today with a ‘clear-the-block’ prosecution which, if successful, will eradicate the 31st Weymouth drug trafficking organization entirely.
We cannot and will not accept the desolation of the drug trade as a fact of life anywhere in America.
I want to thank our FBI partners and the Philadelphia Police Department. I also want to thank all our federal and state law enforcement partners for their participation in Operation Take Back America, the Homeland Security Task Force, and PSN Recon, which is the violent crime initiative of the United States Attorney’s Office to harness the intelligence of the entire law enforcement community—federal, state, and local—to identify the individuals and organizations responsible for violence in this city.
Through PSN Recon, today is just the start of our crusade against violent criminals in the city. Today it is those criminals, not the citizens they victimize, that must live in fear of a Department of Justice that is focused on its prime mission of peace through law.
~ US Attorney Metcalf
This indictment brings charges against thirty-three (33) defendants in a massive drug conspiracy spanning nearly a decade, involving tremendous volumes of fentanyl, and all centered at the epicenter of the opioid crisis in the infamous open-air drug markets of the Kensington neighborhood.
An indictment is only an allegation, all Americans are presumed innocent, and the job is not done unless and until we obtain a conviction.
But we have sent a loud and unmistakable message today with a ‘clear-the-block’ prosecution which, if successful, will eradicate the 31st Weymouth drug trafficking organization entirely.
We cannot and will not accept the desolation of the drug trade as a fact of life anywhere in America.
I want to thank our FBI partners and the Philadelphia Police Department. I also want to thank all our federal and state law enforcement partners for their participation in Operation Take Back America, the Homeland Security Task Force, and PSN Recon, which is the violent crime initiative of the United States Attorney’s Office to harness the intelligence of the entire law enforcement community—federal, state, and local—to identify the individuals and organizations responsible for violence in this city.
Through PSN Recon, today is just the start of our crusade against violent criminals in the city. Today it is those criminals, not the citizens they victimize, that must live in fear of a Department of Justice that is focused on its prime mission of peace through law.
~ US Attorney Metcalf
