Thirty-one people were arrested Thursday on charges of distributing and possessing cocaine and heroin in one of Long Island’s largest drug takedowns, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said.
“The message is clear,” Singas said. “We will continue working together to make sure that our streets are clear of this poison.”
The arrests occurred Thursday morning at various locations in Nassau and Suffolk County, the result of a nine-month operation led by the FBI’s Long Island Gang Task Force, Singas said at a news conference in Mineola. More arrests will come as a result of the operation, Singas said.
During the arrests, law enforcement officials recovered $125,000, one kilogram of cocaine and several hundred grams of heroin, Singas said, as well as three assault rifles, three loaded handguns and several cars — one of which contained a trap door with 100 grams of cocaine in it.
“This is a major disruption of several large-scale operations conducted by five major suppliers, who are responsible for dealing approximately two to three million dollars of cocaine and heroin in our streets in the last four months,” Singas said at a news conference in Mineola.
The 28 men and three women arrested in the raids range from 21 to 45 years old. Nine law enforcement agencies aided the FBI, including the police and sheriff’s departments in Nassau and Suffolk County, the New York State Police, the Glen Cove Police Department and three village police forces, Singas said. All of the suspects pleaded not guilty except two suspects who have not yet been arraigned.
Authorities determined that Davis Ramis of Uniondale, is a major drug trafficker, who supplied to four major distributors on Long Island and 50 others around the state, Singas said. The four alleged major distributors are also Nassau County residents.
Ramis was discovered after Singas’ office got involved in the investigation in 2015 and increased surveillance on Donnell and Terrence Hoyes of Hempstead, two of the alleged major distributors on Long Island, Singas said.
Many of the alleged dealers, including Ramis, were selling drugs out of their own homes where they lived with children, Singas said.
One alleged dealer, Dwayne Yearwood, sold drugs to customers in Great Neck while operating out of his home in Uniondale, Singas said. Another alleged dealer, Shamiek Porter of Hempstead, used a BMW to deliver drugs throughout Long Island. Authorities are currently unaware if Ramis was manufacturing the drugs, Singas said, but they think they came from another source.
“This narcotics network is geographically diverse,” Singas said. “It consists of dealers all throughout the Island, from the north to the south shore.”
Singas said the drugs seized were distributed to mid-level dealers, so they were unpacked and uncut and could not yet be mixed with fentanyl, a highly potent opioid often mixed with heroin.
Authorities found Blood gang paraphernalia at one of his homes, Singas said, but each arrest is different and doesn’t relate to one gang.
