By Tricia Bishop and Melissa Harris , tricia.bishop@baltsun.com and melissa.harris@baltsun.com|May 29, 2009
Dozens of suspected gang members and drug dealers were arrested Thursday morning after local and federal authorities raided nearly 50 locations across Baltimore - including jail cells - and two sites in California, looking for cash, criminals, guns, heroin and cocaine.
The arrests culminated a sweeping, 17-month investigation into Maryland gang activity, intensified by the June abduction and murder of alleged PDL Bloods leader Kenneth Cooper "Cash" Jones, which set off a wave of retaliatory killings last summer.
Thursday's coast-to-coast raids targeted the new "head and shoulders" of the local Pasadena Denver Lanes Bloods set, identified as 31-year-old Emiliano "Blikk" Aguas, who is accused of multiple killings and beatings, allegedly ordering two thrashings of his own associates over a cable box taken without his permission. In a recorded telephone conversation, Aguas said simply, "People got to die, that's what it is," according to court papers. He was also overheard ordering others to send cash to incarcerated gang members and to make sure their contraband cell phones were fully stocked with minutes, authorities say.
Aguas was charged, along with 22 other alleged PDL members, under federal racketeering laws prohibiting illegal gang enterprises and with drug trafficking conspiracy. According to the indictment, the defendants robbed liquor stores, stole from bystanders, beat one another, dealt drugs and murdered to protect their makeshift "family."
"We killers, we kill for each other," defendant Demetrice "Murder" Grimes was recorded saying to another individual, court records say.
Another 11 defendants on that indictment, filed Tuesday and unsealed Thursday, were charged only with conspiracy to distribute drugs, which carries a maximum life sentence.
A second, related federal indictment charges nine people, including one from the first indictment, with conspiracy to distribute heroin, which has a maximum sentence upon conviction of 40 years. Seven other individuals will be prosecuted at the state level.
All but six of the 49 defendants were in custody as of Thursday afternoon.
The takedown, dubbed Operation Tourniquet, "shut off the flow of the Bloods and brought them to justice," said Mark Chait, acting assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His was the lead agency in the operation, which included significant involvement from Baltimore police and prosecutors as well as the U.S. Attorney's Office.
