Volusia drug trafficking investigation leads to 20 arrests in fentanyl, heroin, cocaine ring – News – Daytona Beach News-Journal Online

A heroin dealer and self-proclaimed “smooth criminal,” his business associate and their underlings are behind bars and their sophisticated drug enterprise has been taken down, Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood announced Thursday.

With their capture comes the hope that authorities have put a dent in the local opioid epidemic — one that has resulted in 300 combined deaths in 2017 and 2018 in Volusia alone, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

“This is what they live for,” Chitwood said of the Volusia Bureau of Investigation, a local narcotics task force comprised of members from various police agencies. “Street level dealers, absolutely you got to get them out of there, but (it’s great) to go after an organization and brick-by-brick dismantle it.”

[SPECIAL REPORT: Trail of Death: Lives lost to heroin and other opioids]

Chitwood was joined at Thursday’s media conference by Daytona Beach Police Chief Craig Capri. The two announced that local drug enforcement agents have put a halt to a drug-trafficking organization responsible for distributing heroin, fentanyl and cocaine. They called the bust, “Operation: Smooth Criminal.”

A total of eight members of the organization were caught, including ringleaders Marcel “MJ” Green, 31, of Daytona Beach, and Robert Hamilton Jr., 34, of Ormond Beach.

The other suspects were rounded up during a series of raids that took place Thursday morning across Volusia County, including one in the Pelican Bay subdivision.

The investigation also resulted in the identification of the organization’s supplier, Kenneth Rowell, 44, of Pembroke Pines, who was arrested Thursday by law enforcement officers in South Florida.

Among the items seized in Volusia County on Thursday were fentanyl, at least a quarter million dollars in cash, luxury vehicles and 20 firearms.

The investigation, which started in 2018 and was dubbed “Operation Smooth Criminal,” resulted in arrest warrants for nearly two-dozen people on trafficking charges. Arrest warrants remain active for 14 more suspects, Sheriff’s Office spokesman Andrew Gant said.

Three of the guns recovered from search warrant locations in Volusia County were reported stolen, including a shotgun taken in a car break of a sheriff’s deputy’s patrol vehicle in 2016.

“These are not nice people,” Chitwood said of the suspects. He said he hopes their arrests will jar something loose in one or more unsolved homicide cases.

Chitwood cited the May 14, 2018 slaying of Monquavia Hamilton, 25, as a case he hopes can be solved through new leads. Investigators have said Hamilton, who was involved in the drug trade, was assassinated in her Deltona home.

The other suspects taken into custody Thursday during the raids are Michael Jolly, 45, of Daytona Beach; Mavis Williams, 41, of Daytona Beach; Karlee Harbst, 27, of Port Orange; Jessica Gorman, 26, of Deltona; John Organ, 32, of Palm Coast; and Lee Wiley Jr., 42, of Daytona Beach.

Chitwood said the suspects have roughly 300 felony arrests combined and more than 120 convictions.

The investigation was the result of “hundreds and hundreds of hours” of work on the part of local narcotics agents. Local authorities also got assists from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, Chitwood said.

Due to federal law enforcement involvement and the scope of the criminal enterprise, the suspects will be prosecuted in federal court, the sheriff told reporters. He said he hopes the federal system will implement harsher sentences.

“This time, these guys are going to the big-boy jail, federal prison,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Office released a video that showed footage of what the suspected drug dealers owned, including luxury cars, semi-automatic rifles, a safe filled with cash and heroin.

Chitwood said one of the ringleaders, Green, has described himself “as cool and as slick as Michael Jackson.” He suggested that’s why the Volusia Bureau of Investigations named its operation “Smooth Criminal.”

Chitwood told reporters the organization’s supplier was delivering 3 kilograms of heroin per week to the area. The lower-level dealers were selling about $10,000 in drugs per week, deputies said.

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