Eleven people have been arrested in an ongoing investigation into a drug trafficking ring in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District.
A coalition of federal agencies and the Seattle Police Department announced the arrest Monday morning. Law enforcement seized $3 million dollars’ worth of drugs, including methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl.
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“The number of lethal doses potentially generated is substantial,” said David Reames, special agent in charge with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Seattle. “It could kill everyone in Seattle twice.”
Officials said it’s one of the largest seizures in the Pacific Northwest.
The latest takedown is connected to an earlier arrest of five people in January. The group was known to sell drugs to homeless and vulnerable people in the CID. Wiretaps gave investigators an inside look at the organization, known as the Jungle, and their operations in Oregon and California.
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“We believe they were sourcing the drugs from California,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Casey Conzatti. “The information that we have is that they were probably coming across the border, being distributed while in California, probably in the Los Angeles area, and then trafficked from Los Angeles up to the Oregon area and then further into the Western District of Washington.”
Three people connected to the ring are still at large.
