When federal agents broke up the drug ring allegedly run by Enrique "Rick" Perez last month, it was a major victory for Camden.
Members of the Perez Organization, as it was called on the street, made millions peddling narcotics, authorities said, and have been charged in the shooting death of a Rutgers student.
Their headquarters, authorities said, was a barbershop at Fifth and Vine Streets, less than a mile from the federal courthouse downtown.
But the indictments of Perez and 10 of his associates have created an underworld power vacuum in North Camden.
Police now find themselves with the possibility that a larger, stronger organization may rise to control the drug territory once allegedly run by Perez.
"History repeats itself. Every time somebody gets knocked out of the box, somebody else picks up the slack," said New Jersey State Police Capt. William Higgins, head of the Camden Anti-Crime Partnership. "We are talking about a quarter-million-dollar-a-week operation. You don't think somebody is going to vie for that?"
The signs of a takeover are already appearing at places such as Fifth and York Streets, where blue graffiti swirl over the plywood of a vacant building, curving upward into three jagged peaks of a crown with two dots hovering above.
The markings are a symbol of the Latin Kings, a street gang with tentacles that reach across the country. The Kings are thriving in New York, Newark and, to a lesser extent, North Philadelphia.
Now, local police say, they seem to be moving in to fill the void in North Camden.
This increase in gang activity comes amid a revitalization period for Camden, where the state is pumping in millions to develop the city's waterfront and restructure municipal finances.
Coinciding with that effort is a two-year commitment by the state police to dedicate 100 uniformed and plainclothes officers to street patrols in Camden. In addition, the state Division of Criminal Justice is preparing to launch a multiagency crackdown on gangs in seven cities, including Camden, Atlantic City and Trenton.
Higgins said that in the six months the state police had been active in Camden, they had made 1,627 arrests, mostly for drug offenses and outstanding warrants.
Since May, state police have been cruising neighborhoods that are known as open-air drug markets.
In a "sweep," two police vehicles are driven in opposite directions on a targeted block, trapping anyone who tries to flee.
