Police arrest 15 in connection with heroin sales, dogfighting

Bill San Antonio

Authorities have arrested 15 people in connection with the sale of various narcotics as well as an illegal dogfighting operation that law enforcement officials said ran amuck throughout parts of Nassau County’s south shore.

The arrests were made as part of an ongoing investigation that has so far yielded weapons, cash, drugs — including heroin, fentanyl-laced heroin, Xanax, Oxycontin and Codeine Promethazine — and various and dogfighting paraphernalia as well as the rescue of 11 dogs from residences in Freeport and Roosevelt, law enforcement officials said.

The arrests, dubbed “Operation Bloodsport” by law enforcement, took place Wednesday and Thursday morning and were announced during a news conference Thursday at the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola shortly after the accused were transported out of the nearby Nassau County police headquarters.

“With investigations like these, we are taking down pushers of violence, addiction and death who have been preying on our communities, while further demonstrating the clear and undeniable link between animal abuses and broader criminal enterprises,” said Acting Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas, whose office last year under former District Attorney Kathleen Rice uncovered a multi-state opiates pipeline that circulated to New York from Mexico. 

Though many of those arrested were associated in some capacity with the Bloods street gang, which has syndicates in the southwestern portion of Long Island, authorities said, the investigation focused primarily on defendants Shaheem Allen, Kwame Reaux and Daquan Mclean.

Those arrested were charged with various felony counts of drug possession and distribution, weapons possession and dogfighting charges. They were set to be arraigned Thursday at First District Court in Hempstead. 

“Make no mistake — those arrested in this operation represent some of the worst of society,” Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said. “They deal in death and the destruction of lives.”

Krumpter would not disclose the total amount of drugs or money seized in the arrests but said various transactions to undercover law enforcement officers were worth “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

He also declined to disclose how widespread throughout the county that the accused and their associates distributed the drugs, citing the ongoing investigation.

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