Mar 31 2007
Feds charge 17 more in Detroit `Black Mafia Family’ case
DETROIT – (Associated Press) Federal prosecutors said Thursday that they have charged 17 more people in a seven-year crackdown on a multistate cocaine-trafficking ring known as the Black Mafia Family.
The indictments, issued Dec. 15 but not made public until now, brings to 58 the number of people indicted, the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit said in a news release.
The gang was led by Terry L. Flenory, 35, of Los Angeles and his brother, Demetrius E. Flenory, 45, of Atlanta, prosecutors have said. The Flenorys and 36 others were indicted in 2005.
Charges in the latest indictment include money laundering and conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
The Black Mafia Family “dealt in multi-kilo quantities of cocaine in the Detroit metropolitan area beginning in the early 1990s,” the statement said. “By the mid 1990s, the organization extended into other parts of the country, including Kentucky, Georgia, Missouri, California and Texas.”
Authorities pursuing the ring have seized about 1,100 pounds of cocaine and about $19 million in money and other assets since 2000, the statement said.
Jacob Arabov, a New York celebrity jeweler known in the hip-hop world as “Jacob the Jeweler,” is awaiting trial in Detroit on accusations that he helped launder about $270 million in drug profits for the group.
Associated Press Posted on Fri, Mar. 30, 2007 http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/16997503.htm
