LawFuel.com – US Attorney News –
Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James T. Hayes, Jr., the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (“ICE-HSI”), announced the unsealing yesterday of a six-count indictment charging 27 members of a Chinese alien smuggling and drug trafficking organization based in the Chinatown section of Brooklyn, New York with alien smuggling, narcotics, stolen property, and related offenses.
Also filed were two complaints charging six additional defendants with attempted home invasion, and a third complaint charging two other defendants in connection with narcotics-related offenses. A total of 35 defendants were charged. Twenty-four of the defendants were taken into custody either Wednesday afternoon or yesterday as part of a coordinated operation involving federal, state, and local law enforcement officers, and appeared in Manhattan federal court before United States Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein.
Ten of the defendants remain at large, and one defendant is currently in custody on other charges, and will be presented on the new charges in the near future. The indictment has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.
