It appears that Charlotte may be developing into the international business destination our local leaders have long dreamed of. Although you may not read about it anywhere else, until recently, an international import-export business of sorts that had chosen Charlotte as one of its four premier global markets was blossoming here.
As it turns out, an arm of one of the largest international drug trafficking organizations ever investigated by federal authorities was operating in Charlotte. Needless to say, the Charlotte Chamber did not send out an announcement last month when a large-scale international investigation revealed that a Vietnamese organized crime ring based in Ottawa, Canada, was distributing ecstasy, marijuana and methamphetamine in Atlanta and Charlotte and was laundering the proceeds through Vietnam.
This news was treated as a big deal in Atlanta, where federal and local officials celebrated the success of an investigation that had come to be known as “Operation Candy Box.”
“Today, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, working hand in hand across many jurisdictional boundaries, attacked what may be one of the largest drug international trafficking organizations ever investigated by federal law enforcement,” United States Attorney Bill Duffey said March 31 at a news conference in Atlanta celebrating the arrest of 10 key members of the crime ring.
But in Charlotte, where two of the 10 arrested co-conspirators lived and were importing and distributing drugs for the ring, there was no press conference. In fact, there wasn’t so much as a peep from local officials.
The international investigation that netted Charlotte residents Phuong The Truong and Hau Thanh Hau Ngo was conducted though a joint effort by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the FBI, the IRS and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) offices in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Houston, New York and Jacksonville.
Truong was arrested at his residence at 2714 Springway Drive in Charlotte in late March after DEA agents tapped a cell phone he was using and monitored a drop off by Truong and Ngo of $414,700 in drug money believed to have resulted from drug sales in Charlotte. The drop off occurred at Hoang Nguyen Cosmetics and Gifts Store in Chamblee, Ga., a business serving as a money-laundering front for the ring.
After the arrest of the two men, Charlotte DEA officers were granted a search warrant to search an apartment in the Tradition Apartments complex off Mallard Creek Road believed to have been used by the drug ring as a “stash house” for drugs and cash and to use a drug ledger seized from Truong in their ongoing investigation. The results of the ongoing search and investigation have not yet been made public.
According the 2002 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Drug Threat Assessment, the latest report available, ecstasy began to show up in Charlotte in the late 1990s. In 1998, police seized less than 100 ecstasy pills. By 2001, over 23,000 pills were seized in Mecklenburg County. As the demand for the drug increased, the report reads, “African-Americans and Asians also became involved in the ecstasy business.”
The proliferation of ecstasy in Charlotte was initially attributed to “rave clubs,” or the misnamed dance clubs downtown that are popular with college kids and other local young adults in their late teens and 20s, so police convinced the Charlotte City Council to crack down on the clubs. Through the dance hall ordinance, select clubs were targeted in recent years and forced to register for permits and essentially obtain permission to operate late into the night.
After the ordinance passed, according to the report, drug seizures at clubs decreased, but ecstasy seizures throughout the county continue to rise. At the moment, it is unclear how much of a role the drug smuggling and money-laundering ring may have played in the increased presence of the drug in the Charlotte area.
At press time, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Captain Tim Jayne had not returned Creative Loafing’s calls for comment.
Contact Tara Servatius at tara.servatius@cln.com
This article appears in May 26 – Jun 1, 2004.
