Heroin From Chicago Leads To FBI Raids In Indiana
INDIANAPOLIS (CBS) -- FBI agents have staged a statewide series of raids in Indiana -- with heroin from Chicago at their roots.
Nearly 300 FBI agents took part in the raids, targeting 40 people named in an indictment unsealed during a Wednesday hearing before Indianapolis U.S. Magistrate Judge Kennard Foster.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio's Bob Roberts reports
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As of Wednesday evening, 38 of the 40 were in custody.
The central figures are both Indiana prison inmates: 26-year-old Oscar Perez, who is serving a 55-year sentence for murder, and 28-year-old Justin Addler, who is serving a 26 year sentence for dealing in cocaine.
More than 20 counts of the 26-count indictment focus on the Chicago-related activity. Perez and Addler allegedly arranged through a series of wireless phone calls, from their cells, to supply heroin from Chicago to dealers in Indianapolis, Crawfordsville and New Castle, Ind., and to smuggle drugs to inmates in the Wabash Valley Correctional Center in Carlisle, Ind., 220 miles south of Chicago, and the Indiana Reformatory in Pendleton, just east of Indianapolis.
In the 29-page indictment, obtained by WBBM Newsradio, Perez and Addler also are accused of arranging deals for methamphetamine from California and PCP and LSD.
Correctional officers are among those charged with smuggling the phones and drugs.
At least 17 people appeared in court Wednesday in Indianapolis. Prosecutors argued that the defendants were flight risks, and Magistrate Judge Foster ordered that they be held without bond.
