News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 15, 2011
Contact: Rich Isaacson
Number: (313) 234-4310

28 People Indicted In Ashtabula, Ohio Multi-Kilo Cocaine Trafficking Ring

MAR 15 – (DETROIT, Mich.) – A federal grand jury returned a 50-count indictment against 28 people who are accused of participating in a large cocaine trafficking ring operating in the Ashtabula, Ohio area since 2008. Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Robert L. Corso, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and William Johnson, Ashtabula County Sheriff, made the announcement today.

Law enforcement personnel seized more than five kilograms of cocaine and more than $267,000 in U.S. currency during the year-long investigation. Six handguns belonging to coconspirators were also confiscated.

From January 2008 to September 8, 2010, defendants Francisco Felix-Felix, Ricardo Apodaca, Jose Miguel Cardenas, and Carlos Felix arranged for multiple kilogram quantities of cocaine to be brought into Northeast Ohio, including to a house on Plymouth Road in Eastlake, Ohio, according to the indictment.

Those defendants, along with Oscar Batres Jr. and Exiquio Felix-Beltran, then delivered the cocaine to Shawn Decola, of Ashtabula, according to the indictment.

The co-conspirators often used vehicles with hidden compartments to transport the cocaine, and to transport sums of cash used to pay for the cocaine, according to the indictment. The indictment further alleges that upon receipt of the cocaine, Decola resold it to various individuals, to include defendants Isaac Coleman, Marcus Dennis, Desmond Triplin, as well as Chris Dyer and William Saad Bradley, who in turn resold the cocaine to other co-conspirators in the Ashtabula area.

The co-conspirators from time to time also “cooked,â€