Thread: Chicago tour bus used to move pot, cash nationwide

Chicago tour bus used to move pot, cash nationwide

By TODD RICHMOND, The Associated Press
2:03 p.m. October 6, 2009

MADISON, Wis. — The purple tour bus rumbled toward Arizona. On board were 15 passengers, all promised $1,000 and a hotel stay. Stuffed into the luggage compartments, in four black duffel bags, was $1.4 million.

Trailing the bus were Wiscosnin Department of Justice agents, heading straight into a case that reads like a crime novel.

A Detroit drug lord named Adarus Mazio Black was using the tour bus to smuggle his cash and dope across the country and was so afraid of getting caught he had his face rebuilt and his fingerprints erased.

U.S. Assistant Attorney J. Michael Buckley said he will seek life in prison for the 38-year-old Black when he is sentenced Nov. 3 in Detroit on conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana. The bus company owner, James Washington Jr., faces up to 20 years for conducting financial transactions with money from illegal activities. He's due to appear at a status hearing in federal court in Milwaukee on Thursday.

"This is the one of the most elaborate operations I've ever seen," said Buckley, who has spent nearly 20 years as a federal prosecutor. "(Black is) one of the most calculating and cunning individuals I've investigated and prosecuted, and one of the most dangerous."

Court documents filed in Detroit and Milwaukee give a glimpse into the operation.

Wisconsin Justice Department agent Tim Gray got a tip in March 2007 that a man named Kelvin Jones had robbed a drug dealer and hidden the money in a self-storage unit in Milwaukee.

Gray searched the unit and found a plastic tub stuffed with $1.1 million. A midnight search of Jones' house turned up receipts for cars, motorcycles, a big-screen TV and more.

"Amidst it all," Gray said, "was a picture of a big purple tour bus."
Jones told agents the bus was part of a front for smuggling drugs.

Jackson Coach Lines of Chicago, he said, moved millions of dollars out of Detroit, exchanged it for marijuana in Tucson, Ariz., then shuttled the drugs back to Detroit. According to court documents, Washington, the owner, paid people as much as $1,000 to act as passengers and $2,000 to drive the bus.

Jones said his father drove the bus in January 2007 and helped Jones rob it. Jones even smashed his father on the head to make it look like he wasn't involved.

That April, Wisconsin agents followed the bus from Chicago to Detroit to Tuscon, Ariz.

The bus pulled up to a restaurant in Tuscon, Ariz. The driver loaded the duffel bags into a waiting Toyota Avalon, which then headed to a Tucson home where agents later found $1.4 million in cash.

About 24 hours after the purple bus left for Detroit, another bus, this one red, left Chicago. It went to Detroit, then turned south. Wisconsin agents tailed it to Oklahoma City, Okla., where they stopped the bus and found about $1.1 million inside.

"Enough money," Gray said, "to make you want to kill people who want to tell on you."

Prosecutors believe Black's ring summoned the two bus drivers to Detroit a month later. A man walked up to them as they sat in their car and shot them repeatedly as they tried to honk for help. Alleged hit man Vincent Smothers is awaiting trial in the two deaths. Police say he's confessed in stark detail to killing the drivers and six other people. He has pleaded not guilty to all eight killings.

Gray said Black's ring was looking for Washington, too, before Washington surrendered to agents. His attorney, Thomas Erickson, said Washington owned the bus company for 15 years and wasn't directly involved with Black, but declined further comment.

Federal drug agents already were investigating Black in the deaths of two rival drug dealers in Detroit. After the bus busts, Black headed south.

According to court documents, he visited a plastic surgeon in Nogales, Mexico, where he had nine surgeries, altering his hairline and nose and transplanting skin from his toes to hide his fingerprints.

Using bank withdrawal records, DEA agents tracked Black to Corona, Calif., about an hour east of Los Angeles and captured him there in October 2007. A Detroit jury convicted him in May.

He hasn't been charged with any homicides, but Buckley said the judge will consider those allegations in sentencing. Black's attorney, Keith Golden, declined comment.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/ ... dex=178266

Jones said his father drove the bus in January 2007 and helped Jones rob it. Jones even smashed his father on the head to make it look like he wasn't involved.

Nice kid--unless that was consensual head smashing.
It makes me very happy that the American taxpayer will get to support these folks for as long as they are in jail.

Originally Posted by vortex

Jones said his father drove the bus in January 2007 and helped Jones rob it. Jones even smashed his father on the head to make it look like he wasn't involved.

Nice kid--unless that was consensual head smashing.
It makes me very happy that the American taxpayer will get to support these folks for as long as they are in jail.

The $1.1 million and the $1.4 million in cash that was seized will help pay for the investigation and their jail time.

Chicago seems to make it real easy to operate criminal enterprise, eh?

JohnDoe2 wrote:

The $1.1 million and the $1.4 million in cash that was seized will help pay for the investigation and their jail time.

I believe I disagree with that statement. The money will probably end up in some slush fund where we are able to pay interest to China.
And, dang nab it! I was waiting for that shipment of money!

Good point, miguelina. It seems like Chicago in the news these days is nothing but dirty politics and some innocent kids getting murdered. And what a great place for the Olympics!

We get to sell the buses and the duffle bags too.

Originally Posted by miguelina

Chicago seems to make it real easy to operate criminal enterprise, eh?

It's my understanding that Chicago IS a criminal enterprise.

According to court documents, he visited a plastic surgeon in Nogales, Mexico, where he had nine surgeries, altering his hairline and nose and transplanting skin from his toes to hide his fingerprints.

It had to be a really corrupt plastic surgeon to perform surgery that would hide the mans fingerprints.

Originally Posted by butterbean

According to court documents, he visited a plastic surgeon in Nogales, Mexico, where he had nine surgeries, altering his hairline and nose and transplanting skin from his toes to hide his fingerprints.

It had to be a really corrupt plastic surgeon to perform surgery that would hide the mans fingerprints.

Or the doctor had a gun pointed at his head while he did it,
his wife would be released when the surgeries were completed,
the doctors kid gets to go home when the surgeries are complete, etc.