23 Indicted In K&a Drug Investigation

Whether you call them the "K&A gang" or the "Northeast mob," the fact is that 23 of their number face federal drug charges, with more likely to follow.

Topping the list is Carl Jackson, who, according to federal authorities, controlled a methamphetamine production and distribution ring said to have churned out roughly $10 million worth of the drug, commonly known as speed,

from secret labs in Philadelphia, its suburbs, Delaware and the Pocono mountains.

Jackson and 22 others were named in a federal grand jury indictment unsealed yesterday. Jackson, 51, whose nickname is "Better Days," is now in the Philadelphia Detention Center after his arrest in March 1986 on similar

drug charges.

U.S. Attorney Edward S.G. Dennis Jr. said in a press release that the gang is "one of the largest methamphetamine organizations in the nation."

According to the Pennsylvania Crime Commission, the K&A gang, centered in the Kensington and Allegheny avenues neighborhood, started life as several groups engaged in burglary. Later, the gang began "cooking" chemicals, including P2P, to make speed.

Jackson, who gained control of the gang after the indictment of former leader John Berkery, who has disappeared, linked up with Edward Loney, a Florida resident who is still being sought, according to Joseph Labrum, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case. Loney faces four charges.

"They would produce as much as 100 pounds of methamphetamine at a time," Labrum said. "Then it was distributed in pound and multi-pound quantities by people employed by Carl Jackson."

The indictment alleges that on several occasions Jackson paid $300,000 for a 55-gallon drum of P2P, the chief ingredient in speed. Loney allegedly arranged a P2P pipeline to Toronto, while Jackson had sources in New York.

In April 1982, for example, Jackson worked through Waldemar "Walter" Roeder, an unindicted co-conspirator who is now a government witness in the unrelated mail-fraud and tax-evasion trial of former police Officer Leo Ryan.

Roeder arranged for the sale of 200 kilos of P2P from Richard Coccoli, who in turn bought the chemical from a West German company, the indictment alleges.

The evidence cited in the indictment was gathered from 1981 to 1984 by the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and state Bureau of Narcotic Investigations. Sources close to the investigation said some of the indicted gang members are cooperating with the government's case against Jackson and others.