Federal agents and New York City authorities raided about 80 locations throughout the city Wednesday and arrested six people in what officials are calling the largest crackdown on the importation, distribution and sale of synthetic cannabinoids, commonly known as synthetic marijuana, in New York City history, law enforcement officials said.
A
total of 10 people were named in a federal indictment on charges of
participating in a scheme to illegally import at least 100 kilograms of
illegal synthetic compounds into the U.S., enough to produce 260,000
retail packets, officials said. The seizure had a street value of about
$30 million.
Of the 10 suspects, four are still being sought, officials say.
Several
of the defendants are accused of importing illegal synthetic compounds
in powdered form from China using commercial delivery services and
transporting them to a processing facility in the Bronx where other
defendants mixed the compounds with chemical solvents and then sprayed
the mixture onto tea leaves, the indictment says.
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Co-conspirators
then bundled the dried tea leaves into retail packets, labeled them and
transported them to warehouses controlled by wholesale distributors,
the indictment alleges.
Officials
say the retail packets, which contained about 3 to 6 grams of synthetic
marijuana, were sold to individual customers for $5 per packet. Packets
were sold under names such as “AK-47, “Blue Caution,” “Green Giant,”
“Geeked Up,” “Psycho” and other brands.
The investigation and raids were conducted by the DEA, the NYPD, Homeland Security Investigations and the NYC Sheriff’s office.
Those
arrested Tuesday appeared in federal court in Manhattan later
Wednesday. All are charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics and
face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors
asked for a high bail amount for the defendants because of the money
involved in the operation -- $30 million worth of products have been
seized so far.
Two
of the defendants were released on $200,000 bond; three others were
released on $500,000 bond. One other suspect, Murad Kassim, remains
detained on $1 million bond because he was a flight risk, the judge
said. Kassim is also believed to have access to to a significant portion
of the money in the scheme.
All
defendants have been ordered to surrender travel documents and were
given travel restrictions within the southern and eastern districts of
New York.
Officials
say synthetic marijuana is popular among teenagers and young adults
because it is inexpensive and sold at legitimate retail locations.
The
U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy has reported the effects of
synthetic marijuana use include anxiety, nausea, vomiting, rapid heart
rate, tremors, seizures and suicidal thoughts.
Authorities
said potency can vary from batch to batch so no one knows the precise
effects. Synthetic marijuana is not detected by drug tests, so some
users see it as a way to use without the risk of testing positive,
according to officials.
“Despite
sometimes being calls synthetic marijuana, this stuff is not marijuana.
It can cause unpredictably severe and even lethal effects," Preet
Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a
news briefing. "It is not natural and it is not harmless in any sense of
the word. In fact, some experts believe that spice can be up to 100
times more potent than pot.”
“What
is being sold every day in bodegas and convenience stores throughout
the city to teenagers, to homeless people, to addicts is literally
poison," Bharara added. "Toxic chemicals that bind to receptors in the
central nervous system to frightening and sometimes even deadline
effect.”
At
the news briefing, officials said phone calls to U.S. poison centers
for synthetic marijuana in the first four months of this year increased
225 percent compared with the same time period last year. In New York
state, use of synthetic pot resulted in 2,300 emergency room visits in a
one-month period this year, a ten-fold increase compared with the same
time period last year.
"This
is a scourge on our society, affecting the most disadvantaged
neighborhoods and our most challenged citizens. It affects teenagers in
public housing, homeless in the city shelter system, and it’s quite
literally flooding our streets," Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said
in a statement. "This is marketed as synthetic marijuana, some call it
K2. It is sold by the names of Galaxy, Diamond, Rush, and Matrix. But
its real name is poison.”
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