attorney’s office and officers from the Corona and Los Angeles police departments. ![]() Compton officers participated in the investigation and in the arrests Thursday, as did Internal Revenue Service agents, representatives of the U.S. Parsons, who heads the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said Bines’ arrest will put a dent in the Compton and South Los Angeles drug trade, an opinion echoed by Compton Police Chief Hourie Taylor. The gangs are rivals, authorities said, but they cooperate on drug trafficking because it is so profitable. Bines was described as an “O.G.,” or “original gangster,” affiliated with the Campanela Park Pirus, a faction of the Bloods.Īmong the other suspects arrested Thursday are alleged members of gangs such as the Nutty Block Crips and the Fruit Town Pirus. Agents said the total is difficult to determine, but they believe that Bines and his associates sold an average of about 200 to 400 pounds a month, most of it in the Los Angeles area.īines is closely associated with street gangs in Compton, officials said, and they believe that gang members helped convert the cocaine into crack and distribute it nationwide. According to the FBI’s 73-page affidavit, Rudolph Leroy Mossette, 24, one of the suspects arrested Thursday morning, worked for Delta and delivered crack cocaine purchased from Bines to an undercover FBI agent in Portland, Ore.ĭelta officials cooperated in the probe, agents said.Įstimates of the drug organization’s scope varied widely, with one informant suggesting to agents that Bines’ group was shipping from 15 kilograms to 2,000 kilograms, or at least 33 pounds, a week. ![]() The shipments to other American cities were made through the mail, as well as in cars, trucks and, in at least a few cases, through a Delta Air Lines baggage handler who used his position to circumvent airport security, agents said. ![]() In interviews and in a criminal complaint filed Thursday in federal court, investigators alleged that Bines and his associates bought cocaine from Mexican dealers and shipped it to more than a dozen cities across the country. They cited Bines’ arrest as strong evidence of the connection between gangs and large-scale narcotics trafficking. Investigators said Bines and his organization have been in business for more than a decade, and have acted as the cocaine intermediary between Mexican drug barons and Compton street gangs.
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