In all, a dozen people were taken into custody and one man was being sought as federal, state and local law enforcement agencies capped an 18-month investigation into the city's lucrative drug trade. The investigation is continuing.
``This is the biggest drug takedown in our memory,'' said Camden County Prosecutor Lee A. Solomon. ``They were the top of the pyramid in the city's drug-distribution operations.''
U.S. Attorney Faith S. Hochberg said the narcotics ring was run out of an auto-parts store in East Camden and supplied cocaine to two of the city's most notorious drug areas: the dirt stretch behind Boyd and Bank Streets known as ``The Alley'' and the corner of 33d Street and Westfield Avenue near the Woodrow Wilson Arms Apartments.
The arrests came less than two weeks after a police sting operation near Boyd and Bank went awry and left a Williamstown man dead and three law enforcement officers wounded in an explosion of gunfire. In separate gunfire two hours later, an officer and a teen were shot and wounded.
``We said at that time we would not be deterred by that act of violence,'' said State Attorney General Peter G. Verniero, speaking from the steps of the federal courthouse in Camden yesterday. ``We mean what we say. We have taken down the CEOs of one of the most significant drug organizations in the city.''
To ensure that drug activity in the area does not reemerge, Solomon took the unusual step yesterday of ordering Camden City Police Chief William J. Hill to station two marked patrol cars in The Alley during peak drug-trafficking hours seven days a week.
Earlier in the day, Jose Luis Rivera, 39, of the 1900 block of Birchwood Park Drive in Cherry Hill, was charged with heading the drug ring. Authorities say Rivera conspired with a dozen others to buy cocaine in New York and Puerto Rico and sell it in Camden, both in bulk and in ``deuces,'' street-sale bags priced at $20.
Through his lawyer, Marc Neff, Rivera denied the charges yesterday.
