EDMONDS – Federal officials said Thursday they’ve dismantled a major regional drug trafficking operation run by members of several criminal gangs.
A total of 15 people were arrested, including an Edmonds man. More than $40,000 cash and a “significant” amount of cocaine, marijuana and firearms were seized, officials said.
The cache was displayed at a press conference Thursday afternoon in Seattle.
More than 120 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents and three SWAT teams descended on 14 homes throughout the region, said Kelvin Crenshaw, the ATF special agent in charge.
“We will take back our streets,” he said. “This operation is tremendously significant as it relates to gang activity in the region.”
Those arrested crossed gang-allegiance, gender, racial, ethnic and regional boundaries, he said.
Unlike feuding gangs in other parts of the country, the alleged Pacific Northwest gang members were united in their greed, Crenshaw said.
They were mostly older and less interested in proving themselves, and more motivated to operate a criminal enterprise away from the watchful eye of law enforcement. In conspiring to sell drugs, they formed a kind of meta-gang, Crenshaw said.
“They saw an opportunity to make money,” he said. “It’s all about the green dollar bill.”
On Thursday morning, federal agents stormed the Edmonds home of Gary Kilcup, 39. They served a “no-knock” warrant, according to a search warrant filed in U.S. District Court.
Kilcup’s criminal history includes a 1989 manslaughter conviction and numerous drug and weapons convictions, according to court documents.
During the yearlong investigation, federal agents listened in on Kilcup’s phone conversations and once heard him threaten to kill someone, the documents said.
Kilcup said he “could have whacked that (victim) myself,” an apparent reference to a criminal shooting case in which Kilcup’s son was arrested.
Kilcup’s sister, Nicola, 36, and her husband, Shawn Vanell Piper, 38, are accused of being at the center of the operation run primarily out of Piper’s Seattle auto-detailing shop, prosecutors allege.
The couple were also arrested during Thursday morning’s raids.
Gary Kilcup is believed to have helped distribute the drugs, the documents said.
Kilcup also may be linked to a weapons ring. An informant asked Piper if he could get guns, and Piper told the informant he’d check with his “bro,” a reference to Gary Kilcup, a federal agent said in court papers.
During the investigation, agents focused primarily on operations in King County and Seattle, Crenshaw said.
“The organization didn’t paint itself in a box,” he said. “It reached out. It did go into Snohomish County.”
Crenshaw said agents are still investigating whether those arrested Thursday had other links to indoor marijuana-growing operations that have been found in Snohomish County.
“This is so new. We are still in the beginning process of this. We need to see where it takes us,” Crenshaw said.
The people arrested were arraigned in federal court in Seattle on Thursday.
They face a variety of drug possession, drug distribution and weapons charges.
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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