(NewsNation) — Nearly 200 people from 10 states have been criminally charged by federal prosecutors targeting large drug trafficking organizations operating around the United States.
Charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice this week have led to the arrests of defendants whom prosecutors allege are part of large-scale drug trafficking operations throughout the Eastern, Southern and Midwest regions of the company and throughout Alaska, prosecutors said.
The charges announced by federal law enforcement officials stem from a Defense Department “Violent Crime Reduction Strategy” implemented by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to leverage the defense department’s resources of prosecutors, agents and investigators to combat violent crime.
“These cases represent just a fraction of the work our agents and prosecutors are doing every day to target, disrupt, and dismantle the cartels and drug trafficking organizations that are poisoning the American people,” Garland said in a statement issued Friday.
Defendants have been charged in four U.S. districts, where 40 to 82 defendants were arrested. In the largest bust, the Northern District of West Virginia charged 82 people whom prosecutors claim are part of a drug trafficking ring in the state’s eastern panhandle
A 38-year-old Baltimore man is accused of providing large amounts of fentanyl capsules and powder to be redistributed in two West Virginia counties. Prosecutors allege other drug trafficking operations moved cocaine, methamphetamines and other illegal narcotics.
Justice officials said that every U.S. Attorney’s Office has collaborated with state and local partners to implement district-specific violent crime reduction strategies, federal prosecutors said.
“This wave of indictments and arrests — stretching from Alaska to Mississippi and from Nebraska to West Virginia — shows the reach of the Justice Department and our partners across the country and around the world when it comes to disrupting narcotics trafficking,” Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco said.
