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Nov 16, 2009 8:38 pm US/Eastern
Cocaine Ring Broken Up In Allegheny County
MONROEVILLE (KDKA) ―
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Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett. (File)
KDKA
Attorney General Tom Corbett announced the break-up of a massive cocaine ring in Allegheny County Monday morning.
According to a state grand jury, Julius Lamar Robinson, 29, ran the drug operation from an apartment in Monroeville.
Corbett said the multi-million dollar operation was distributing cocaine in Monroeville and Sharpsburg over the last year.
Corbett said the drug ring distributed $228,000 worth of cocaine per month in this region.
Customers used code words to order cocaine over the phone. A "Ben Roethlisberger jersey" or a "Michael Vick jersey" meant seven grams of cocaine.
The affiliation of two main targets, Robinson and Antonio Lemar Henderson, 23, in the investigation raised eyebrows.
Prosecutors say they belong to the Race Street Crips in Homewood.
"It seems that they have been a derivation of the gangs in the 90s, they've become somewhat more sophisticated and a little bit more diverse," Marnie Sheehan-Balchon, deputy attorney general, said.
The Crips of the early 90s were also based in Homewood and were often at war with the Bloods in Garfield and the Law gang in Wilkinsburg.
Now their activities have fewer boundaries and are not bound by specific gang colors.
"Now young men are wearing all black so that they can't be identified with any particular group," Pittsburgh Police Assistant Chief Maurita Bryant said.
And investigators aren't sure if they're part of the same gang.
"As we arrest these individuals, somebody replaces them. Sometimes they're younger, sometimes they're people who were there – we didn't know that they were there," Corbett said. "These two have identified themselves as members of the Crips."
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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