$10,000-a-day heroin market on West Side busted
August 12, 2010 7:32 PM | Chicago Breaking News
A $10,000-a-day heroin market on Chicago's West Side has been smashed, and charges have been filed against 29 people,
federal and state authorities said today.
Suspected members of and suppliers to the New Breeds street gang were charged today, most of them in a 230-page federal
complaint. Twenty have been arrested.
Among those still at large is the gang's reputed leader, Dana Bostic of Aurora, officials said.
Among the drugs and weapons seized in the investigation, which began in October, were almost 17 pounds of heroin found
two weeks ago hidden in a drive shaft carried in the back of a Jeep Cherokee that was the subject of a routine traffic stop,
officials said.
Authorities took the Jeep to a Chicago police station where a drug-sniffing dog led police to the stash.
Earlier this year, authorities also seized nearly $250,000 belonging to the same person driving the Jeep. The cash was found
packaged in 23 floating bundles in the gas tank of a pickup truck.
Search warrants were executed in Chicago, Aurora, Cicero, Forest Park and Hillside. The defendants were charged under
federal and state laws.
In all, nearly $350,000 in cash, 18 guns and uncut heroin worth about $1.2 million were seized. Chicago Police
Superintendent Jody Weis said the heroin could be diluted and sold for 10 times that amount on the street.
Authorities said the defendants sold on street corners and in stores and buildings in a 12-square-block area centering on
CTA stops in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, bounded by Kostner Avenue on the east, Pulaski Road on the west,
Jackson Boulevard on the north and Congress Parkway on the south.
The drug ring took in as much as $10,000 a day from selling "dime bags" -- sold for $10 -- of heroin, authorities said.
The New Breeds street gang originated in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a splinter group from the Black Gangsters, one
of three factions of the original Black Gangster Disciples, according to the charging documents.
--Matthew Walberg