Perhaps most surprisingly, Morales admitted ordering six murders, stretching from 1993 to 2001, and the attempted murder of a witness in one of those cases.
Morales, 35, secretly pleaded guilty in federal court in 2005 to nine counts, including a charge similar to the one used to take down Mafia bosses. His plea was unsealed this month, and authorities described the sprawling case for the first time yesterday.
"There was no more successful, dangerous, ruthless drug dealer in the city of Camden," U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie told reporters at the federal courthouse in Camden. "No one more so than Raymond Morales."
For several years, at the height of his multimillion-dollar-a-year business, Morales was selling 30 to 100 kilos of cocaine a month at $21,000 to $23,000 a kilo, DEA agents said.
The value of his monthly supply would have been multiplied at the retail level on the street.
"It was akin to a Sam's Club or a BJ's or a Costco," said Gerard P. McAleer, the Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge. "He was a big-box store."
Morales operated for more than a decade - including several years from inside a state prison - selling "thousands of kilos" of cocaine, authorities said.
Throughout his reign, Morales, allegedly with a cousin and half-brother, controlled a drug corner at Atlantic and Norris Streets in Camden. Through his wholesale business, Morales supplied several major drug sets, including the 300 Morse Street Crew in East Camden, the M.O.B. Boys in South Camden, and crews in Camden's Ablett Village apartments and in the Centerville section.
How the crews worked
Eleven of the 23 people indicted in connection with those sets have pleaded guilty.
