DC Police Seize $2.5M in Heroin, Maserati in Area’s Largest-Ever Drug Bust

D.C. police and federal officials seized millions of dollars worth of heroin and marijuana from a Northeast D.C. home in what the mayor called the largest-ever seizure of heroin in the region.

Authorities seized more than 88 pounds of heroin laced with fentanyl, 40 pounds of marijuana, six semi-automatic handguns and a Maserati from a home in the 4200 block of Foote Street NE on Dec. 19, police announced Friday.

The heroin alone has a wholesale value of more than $2.5 million, police chief Peter Newsham said.

“We believe the street value is much more than that,” he said at a news conference. 

Two men were arrested in connection with the ongoing investigation, which was conducted in collaboration with the FBI and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The residence raided on Foote Street was the home of heroin supplier Linwood Douglas Thorne, 46, police said. When officials searched his home on Dec. 19, he wasn’t there. He was arrested in Baltimore on Thursday.

Newsham said some of the drugs from Thorne’s organization were sold in his neighborhood. More than 1 in 4 families there live below the poverty level, according to U.S. Census estimates.

On the same day that officials raided the house on Foote Street, they conducted two simultaneous operations. In Fairfax County, Virginia, a 28-year-old man was arrested and charged with drug offenses. His name was not released. Also, a business was searched in Prince George’s County, Maryland. D.C. police did not name the business.

Officials disrupted the drug ring in part through the use of a monthslong undercover operation. An ATF agent bought 270 grams of heroin, 1,500 grams of marijuana and nine guns, Newsham said.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said the seizures and arrests will make the city safer amid a spike in opioid overdose deaths.

“Because we have removed this heroin from our streets, we know that we will save lives,” she said.