TRENTON, N.J. (1010 WINS) -- A six-month-long investigation led officials to make 18 arrests, over $228,000 worth of drugs siezed, as well as recover 11 guns, six cars, a significant amount of cash, and help other investigators solve two murders, authorities said Thursday.
While investigators targeted Trenton's "H Block" gang, they also discovered that a Pennsylvania man was supplying North Trenton with heroin, officials said.
Investigators arrested two men at a West Windsor hotel last week with a box full of heroin.
Officials watched several drug deals go down and witnessed a location to their stash in the woods nearby, Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said in a statement.
The investigation called Operation Eight-Ball also helped develop evidence that led to two arrests, for the deaths of three people Onofri.
The investigation was named after the eight ball logo the gang uses, Onofri added.
"In the spring of 2020, as the number of shootings and homicides in Trenton began increasing at an alarming rate, we set out to expose trends and connections that might be responsible for triggering the uptick in violence," Onofri said. The city finished with 40 homicides in 2020, a record.
According to the prosecutor, several people were placed under surveillance in the joint investigation by over a dozen local, state, and federal agencies that led to 40 search warrants.
"Operation Eight-Ball was an enormous investigative endeavor and as a result, many violent offenders have been taken off of the street," the prosecutor said.
Onofri's office highlighted that in November, an undercover drug deal was allegedly made by 19-year-old Joseph Kaite at a gas station.
Kaite fled when officers moved in to arrest him and crashed his car into a police car.
He then ran away on foot and officers caught up to him and arrested him and Vincent Bowman and Zaire Jones, 20-year-olds from who were also in the vehicle.
Search warrants led officials to locate 30 bricks of heroin and a shotgun.
Evidence about the October shooting death of 26-year-old Derek Colley, who was cornered and killed at a deli another search at an apartment in North Trenton was found evidence about the October shooting death of Derek Colley, a 26-year-old who was cornered and slain in a Spring Street deli was found using another search warrant.
Kaite and Tabika Hale, 26, were charged Colley's death.
Prosecutors said that officers following Deshawn Abner, 31, as he traveled by cab from Bond Street in Trenton to the Extended Stay Motel in West Windsor where he allegedly met up with Aziz Stroman, 31.
Officers watched as they searched a wooded area near the motel for 30 minutes then Abner retrieve a box from the motel's bushes and get into the Mercedes Benz Stroman was driving, the statement added.
Officers pulled it over and found the box on the front passenger floor, with 210 bricks of heroin, Onofri said.
Following the arrest of Abner and Stroman, detectives contacted officers in Pennsylvania who had Ricardo Moise, 31, under observation for being the alleged supplier of heroin into North Trenton.
Three alleged H Block gang members were also arrested in connection to the August 2020 deaths of William Irizarry and Julius Vargas, who were killed in front of a corner store in South Trenton after they apparently disrespected the gang on social media.
Officials also charged Kashawn Batts, 33, and Jaquane Leonard, 32, with firearms violations.
1,000 grams of heroin, 1,000 grams of methamphetamine, 15 pounds of marijuana – with a combined street value of $228,000 were seized during the investigation which concluded last week.
"Our law enforcement challenges this year required a coordinated plan, and I'm thankful for the city, county, state, and federal officers who stepped up to make Trenton a safer place to live," Trenton Police Director Sheilah A. Coley said.
