Indictment: Two more face charges in Greenwood-linked drug ring | Crime

An owner of Legends Bar and Grill is among two people indicted last week in connection to what authorities think is a top-level drug ring with Greenwood ties that bought fentanyl and other drugs from Mexico and operated stash houses in Laurens County.

In total, 13 people have been charged in the 46-count superseding indictment.

As part of the new charges, Valencia Suber is accused of lying to the IRS about her financial and ownership interest of Legends Bar and Grill in Greenville, as well as that of Detric McGowan, a principal actor in the case who gained fame shortly before his arrest by buying nearly $600 worth of Girl Scout cookies.

She’s also accused of laundering money and conspiring to launder money in connection with the drug ring. Suber incorporated S.V. Food Services, which operates the bar, on Aug. 21.

Also arrested after the latest indictment is Kevin Wheeler, who lived at a residence investigators identified as a stash house.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin F. McDonald set unsecured bonds during Friday’s arraignment for Suber and Wheeler, who both entered not guilty pleas.

Probe’s beginningThe investigation traces its roots to a series of drug buys in October 2017.

In a joint investigation, Greenwood police and State Law Enforcement Division officers bought more than 300 fentanyl pills across five controlled purchases. Investigating the source for those pills led to what U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents thought was a drug trafficking organization.

“Based on law enforcement sources of information, confidential source information, undercover law enforcement operations and an ongoing financial investigation, local law enforcement identified” four Greenwood-connected people “as distributors of significant quantities of cocaine and heroin and fentanyl,” prosecutors wrote in a motion for pretrial detention order. Greenwood police said once they understood the scope of the operation, they referred the case to the DEA. Those four are McGowan, his brother Richard Lamont Longshore, Donald Nathaniel Thomas Jr. and Jamal Demarcus Latimer, all currently or formerly of Greenwood.

Since then, according to court documents, agents have been watching the men and even posed as representatives of a Mexican drug cartel as part of a nearly two-year investigation that netted 13 arrests. Investigators also seized nearly $1.8 million, two properties, five vehicles, three firearms and a large quantity of drugs.

Watching

the watchmenAs investigators were getting closer to making arrests, it wasn’t unnoticed among their targets.

For instance, investigators wrote in a search warrant that when they stopped two vehicles Oct. 23 that were en route to pay $760,000 in cash for what the ring believed was 20 kilograms of cocaine and heroin, McGowan drove past in a separate vehicle “in a manner consistent with counter-surveillance.”

He then positioned himself behind a hotel, the document said, where he could watch officers as they seized more than $1 million from the two vehicles but without the officers being able to see him.

It also took just two days for McGowan to notice after agents installed a surveillance camera near the stash house at 4090 Jefferson Davis Road, Mountville, the warrant said. When he saw it on Feb. 5, he removed the camera, which investigators said continued streaming as he walked it inside the house.

Images from the live feed, which showed items that could be used in the process of pressing pills, “confirmed agents’ belief that TARGET LOCATION #2 was being used to manufacture illicit pills, including heroin/fentanyl pulls and store controlled substances,” DEA special agent Rany L. Smith wrote.

Within 30 minutes of removing the camera, McGowan told someone not charged in the probe “that’s a wrap for that” before indicating he’d be moving his operation to a different location, according to an intercepted phone call. That second stash house was Wheeler’s residence, according to court documents.

Laundering and other money crimesBanks are required to report any cash transaction of $10,000 or more to the federal government in an effort to prevent money laundering. Trying to circumvent this requirement by intentionally making multiple transactions of less than $10,000 in a short span is called structuring transactions and is illegal.

Investigators believe McGowan and Lauren Poore did just that. The indictment lists out $190,200 in deposits made from Oct. 14, 2016 to Jan. 10, 2019. Among the transactions are a $5,000 and $6,000 deposit made into the same account on the same day.

There were also two $9,000 deposits made two days apart into the same account with another $8,000 deposit made to another account in the same span.

The search warrant said “agents found no legitimate source of the currency.”

“I believe the transactions were conducted with proceeds of drug trafficking and, therefore, also constitute concealment money laundering and money laundering transactions conducted to evade the currency reporting requirements,” Smith wrote.

Agents tallied $237,742.81 in transactions they considered money laundering because the source of the funds was disguised, the money was being used to promote an illicit activity or purchases were made to convert ill-gotten funds into property, the indictment said.

These transactions included buying a golf cart, paying rent, purchasing components for a pill press and paying $50,000 toward a house, as well as a number of deposits into bank accounts. All of those transactions involved McGowan, with some also involving Poore or Suber.