Source: Niskanen Center
by Zachary Porreca
“In the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2019, law enforcement launched a coordinated operation to dismantle a multi-million dollar drug trafficking organization in a single sweep. A force of 160 officers from the FBI, Homeland Security, the Army National Guard, and the Philadelphia Police Department, in collaboration with the Office of the Attorney General, targeted thirteen residences within a single blighted Philadelphia neighborhood to dismantle an operation that generated approximately $7.7 million in sales annually. By sunrise that morning, officers had seized 4.9 kg of fentanyl-laced heroin …. The operation was part of the Kensington Initiative, a law enforcement strategy led by Pennsylvania’s Office of the Attorney General aimed at dismantling the open-air drug market that has long plagued Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood.” (10/17/24)