BOSTON, Dec. 15, 2016–Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley delivered the following remarks this afternoon on a series of arrests based on a long-term wiretap investigation targeting a violent drug ring operating across greater Boston:
“Good afternoon. As you know by now, local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies executed about two dozen search warrants across the greater Boston area this morning, dismantling a major drug trafficking organization. With me today are Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, Special Agent in Charge Harold Shaw of the FBI’s Boston Division, Watertown Police Chief Michael Lawn, and members of the multiagency South Shore Drug Task Force.
“Together we are announcing Operation Wolfgang, one of the longest and most successful wiretap investigations in modern Suffolk County history. One would have to go back to the days of the Mafia, when the wiretap statute was last updated, to find a more effective use of telephone intercepts to climb the rungs of a criminal ladder.
Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley (at podium) briefs reporters on “Operation Wolfgang,” a wiretap investigation targeting a violent drug ring affiliated with the Mozart Street Gang. With Conley are Watertown Police Chief Michael Lawn, Special Agent in Charge Harold Shaw of the FBI Boston Division, Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, Assistant District Attorney Macy Lee, and members of the multiagency South Shore Drug Task Force.
“Operation Wolfgang began well over a year ago to investigate Yohan Gomez, age 29 of Dedham, believed to be a high-level drug trafficker associated with the Mozart Street gang. But it soon grew upward to include the individuals we allege were supplying him. Chief among them was Elizabeth Comas, a 26-year-old Hyde Park woman with no criminal record whom we believe is responsible for bringing large quantities of heroin into the US from the Dominican Republic.
“We were able to identify this previously-undetected heroin importer only through the use of wiretaps. Under Massachusetts law as it currently exists, those wiretaps are only granted when applied to organized, hierarchical criminal enterprises such as this one. But as the Chief Justice of our Supreme Judicial Court has noted, they could be every bit as valuable in solving murders and other violent crimes if the Legislature took the minor steps necessary to bring the statute out of the 1960s and into the 21st century.
“The information from those wiretaps led investigators well outside Boston – to Braintree, Brockton, Dedham, Everett, Malden, Quincy, and elsewhere. It took almost three dozen teams of local and federal law enforcement to conduct this morning’s raids, and the entire staff of our Narcotics Unit is at the BMC to arraign the defendants this afternoon.
“Those defendants include Elizabeth Comas, Yohan Gomez, and two other top-level suppliers, as well as a total of 37 additional defendants, all charged with conspiracy to traffic in heroin and fentanyl. Ten firearms have been recovered thus far, along with about $80,000 in cash, 5½ kilos of heroin, and a large quantity of fentanyl – powerful opiates that we in Massachusetts know are every bit as deadly. Make no mistake: Taking these guns and drugs off the street will save lives.
“The primary targets in this operation were not street-level dealers and runners. They were kilo-weight suppliers at the top of the domestic supply chain. They ran a violent drug trafficking organization that conducted robberies, shootings, and armed home invasions – including two that were foiled as a result of information gleaned from court-authorized phone intercepts. Evidence suggests that they even placed an aftermarket GPS device on a rival dealer’s car, intending to track him, rob him, or worse. These individuals posed a grave threat – not just to their competition but to the lives and safety of the community at large.
“There are some pundits, professors, and policymakers who see all drug offenses as minor, and all drug offenders as low-level, nonviolent, users. But cases like this one prove otherwise. According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 1300 people suffered fatal overdoses in Massachusetts in 2014, one of the highest rates in the country and more than 25% higher than the national average. Trafficking in pounds of heroin and fentanyl isn’t low-level, and it isn’t non-violent. The inherent danger and collateral violence associated with drug trafficking is the very reason the legislature imposed harsher penalties for those offenses, and the very reason prosecutors in my office take a two-pronged approach to drug offenses.
“As prosecutors, we know that those addicted to drugs are essentially struggling with a treatable disease, and we routinely divert them to the Drug Court sessions across Suffolk County as a matter of course. But traffickers like these are a different story. Not only do they rob, shoot, and even kill their business rivals and innocents who get caught in the crossfire. They’re responsible for the overdoses that claim three times more lives in Massachusetts than handguns and motor vehicles combined.
“I’d like Commissioner Evans and our other guests to speak as well, but before I do I want to thank them, their teams, and especially two prosecutors from my office for their outstanding work in the months leading up to today. They are Assistant District Attorney Macy Lee, chief of our Narcotics Unit, and Assistant District Attorney Kevin McCarthy, also assigned to the Narcotics Unit.
“Every week over the past three months, they went before a Superior Court judge to lay out the progress of the investigation and obtain the court’s approval for wiretaps on 17 separate phones. As some of you might know, getting authorization for just one phone requires exhaustive preparation and documentation. The nature and extent of wiretap evidence in this case shows just how extensive the drug network was and how closely police and prosecutors were monitored by the courts.
“Every use of technological surveillance was authorized in advance, by a judge, under the rules and restrictions of state and federal law. It takes a keen legal mind and top-level organizational skills to lead an investigation like this one, and I want them to know how proud I am of them for bringing it to fruition.”
The following defendants, all top-level targets of the wiretap investigation leading to this morning’s arrests, were among 15 defendants arraigned this afternoon in the Boston Municipal Court on charges of conspiracy to traffic in Class A (heroin) and Class B (fentanyl) substances:
YOHAN GOMEZ (D.O.B. 5/3/87) of Dedham, held on $2 million cash bail;
EURY VASQUEZ-GONZALEZ (D.O.B. 5/21/96) of Dorchester, held on $250,000 cash bail; and
JEFFREY MEDINA (D.O.B. 3/9/91) of Dorchester, held on $375,000 cash bail.
All three were ordered to wear a GPS monitor and stay away from their co-defendants if they post bail. They return to court on Jan. 9.
A fourth top-level target, ELIZABETH COMAS (D.O.B. 8/12/90) of Hyde Park, was arraigned in West Roxbury Municipal Court on drug charges related to narcotics found in her Hyde Park home this morning. She is expected to face arraignment in the BMC on conspiracy charges tomorrow.
A fifth top-level target, EFRAIN GONZALEZ (D.O.B. 9/11/89) of Roslindale, was apprehended this afternoon in New York and will return to Massachusetts in the coming weeks. Three other fugitive targets were also taken into custody this afternoon, bringing the number of at-large suspects to seven.
–30–
All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
