On Wednesday, federal authorities announced a campaign of arrests and lightning convictions of more than 100 people accused of shooting and drug offenses in three US states.
The wave of charges from the Department of Justice in Georgia, West Virginia and New York come as federal officials work to combat a surge in violent crime, particularly Guns included. The Biden administration has attempted to show federal, state and local efforts to obtain guns and repeat shootings from the streets.
Federal prosecutors and FBI agents have been particularly busy in South Georgia, where an indictment has been opened against 76 people involved in what authorities describe as a gang-related network that distributed methamphetamine, fentanyl and other prohibited drugs. Authorities called it the largest indictment ever filed in South Georgia’s 43 counties.
The FBI dispatched SWAT teams and agents from neighboring Atlanta, South Carolina and Florida on Wednesday to help apprehend more than 30 suspects in coastal Brunswick and surrounding Georgia communities, said Jermaine Deans, assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta office. He said a man who fled was caught with 122 grams of fentanyl in his possession.
Most of the other defendants were already behind bars for previous crimes. Authorities said nine defendants in the indictment remain at large.
Among the dozens indicted in Georgia were a prison guard accused of aiding drug trafficking between inmates and two men accused of selling fentanyl and methamphetamine that led to three overdose deaths.
“Make no mistake, illegal distribution of illegal drugs is not a victimless crime,” said U.S. Attorney David Estes of the Southern District of Georgia. He said the three who died were “silent witnesses to the toll of these illegal drugs pouring into our communities.”
In West Virginia, federal prosecutors announced the indictment of 34 people from two Baltimore-based groups related to the sale of fentanyl, heroin and other drugs that led to a spike in overdoses, including at least two deaths. According to court documents, the operation involved trading guns for drugs.
US Attorney William Ellenfield said the drug activity took place in rural counties in northeastern West Virginia.
In New York, four men were charged with selling more than 50 guns to an undercover police officer in Brooklyn on Wednesday under a new federal gun trafficking law. They were also charged with smuggling fentanyl and cocaine.
Some of the guns came from Virginia, US Attorney General Brion Pace said, and had been made from ghost gun kits or had missing serial numbers, making them more difficult to track down. NYPD Commissioner Kishant Sewell said three of the guns were traced to previous shootings in the city.
This was one of the first trials filed under the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law last June, the peace organization said.
The law allows prosecutors to charge an arms trafficking conspiracy as a standalone federal offense without having to show that the defendant was in the gun business. The law also provides for harsher penalties, with defendants facing up to 50 years in prison as opposed to five or a maximum of 10 years under other laws.
“Today’s charges filed demonstrate how the bipartisan Safer Communities Act can be used as an effective tool in our ongoing fight against gun violence that plagues communities in Brooklyn, across New York City, Long Island, and across the country,” the peace organization said in a press release. Wednesday conference.
The weapons were purchased by an undercover police office posing as a drug dealer. NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said one of the firearms seized had been used in six separate shootings, including injuries to eight people during an August 2021 Family Day celebration in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
In the Georgia case, federal authorities seized 43 rifles, including some assault rifles. Estes said all 76 defendants are charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute illegal drugs, which carries a penalty of 10 years to life in prison. Many were charged with additional offences.
Guns have been at the center of controversy as much as the nation He grapples with the murders which is up nationally in 2020 and recent polls have also shown that Americans are increasingly concerned about crime.
However, the surge that began in 2020 defies easy explanation. Experts point to several possible factors: the pandemic that has killed more than a million people in the United States, gun violence, concerns about the economy, high inflation rates, and extreme stress.
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