More than a hundred narcotics officers executed more than 50 warrants throughout the 16th and 19th Districts, said Lt. Robert Otto of Narcotics Field Unit South.
Those districts were targeted because they've suffered recent spikes in gun violence, said Deputy Police Commissioner William Blackburn.
In November, after a rash of shootings, the department carried out similar raids in the 22d District in North Philadelphia.
By late Thursday afternoon, 66 suspected dealers had been arrested, while eight guns and about $327,389 worth of illegal narcotics had been seized, Otto said.
The show of force had two goals, police said: get guns, drugs, and repeat offenders off the streets, and, perhaps more critical, gather intelligence for ongoing shooting and homicide investigations.
"We're going after bad guys with guns and drugs, and we're trying to cultivate information on all this gun violence," Otto said in a predawn interview at a staging ground along the Delaware River.
Over the last six months, the 16th and 19th Districts have been the scenes of high-profile murders.
In September, two gunmen executed a grocer, his wife, and her sister during a robbery at Lorena's Grocery, at 50th and Parrish Streets in the 16th. The killers remain at large despite a $50,000 reward.
And just hours before officers began knocking down doors Thursday, a shooting in the 4200 block of Pennsgrove Street underscored the challenge of policing neighborhoods ruled by silence and fear.
About 1 a.m., two 16th District officers responded to the nonfatal shooting of a man, 19. The officers asked him who did it, but he would not tell them before he lost consciousness.
