00:00Good afternoon, everyone. As you know, I'm Janine Shapiro, the United States Attorney,
00:06and today I'm here to announce an indictment that reflects our commitment to holding accountable
00:12those who flood our streets with the poison that has devastated families and neighborhoods.
00:19We continue to follow President Trump's executive order to keep D.C. safe, and we also today are
00:26bringing a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to the elimination of criminal cartels,
00:33foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and trafficking rings that are operating in the
00:39United States and abroad pursuant to the Homeland Security Task Force initiative created by President
00:46Trump. The what? In a five-count indictment, we have charged 11 defendants in a transnational
00:56drug operation, charging conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, the conspiracy to distribute
01:04substances containing methamphetamine and substances containing gamma-buterol-lactone, or GBL,
01:14which is commonly abused as a precursor for the sedative GHB. The latter is one of the most
01:23pervasive date-rape drugs currently available. The indictment also charges three of these 11
01:31defendants with money laundering and one defendant with three counts to commit this distribution
01:38of meth here in D.C. My office opened this investigation two years ago after we learned that
01:47D.C.-based targets were distributing meth and GBL in D.C., and that stemmed from information from an
01:56overdose death. This indictment follows a long-term, expansive, far-reaching investigation by the DEA and
02:06the IRS. Now, historically, my office has worked to target some of the most prolific and dangerous
02:13drugs in D.C., like fentanyl, cocaine, crack, PCP. However, meth and GBL appear to be emerging threats
02:24in the District of Columbia that we hope to eradicate with proactive investigations and indictments like the
02:31one today. Meth and GBL are often mixed together as a party drug, and that makes them even more
02:40lethal. And CDC research shows that methamphetamine is the second most commonly found drug among individuals
02:49who fatally overdose. And GBL is a Schedule I narcotic that, upon consumption, the body metabolizes
02:58into GHB, the date rape drug. Now, we have seized 5,000 pounds of GBL. Each liter of GBL produces
03:08up to
03:091,000 dosages, and each dosage is the size of the cap on a water bottle, resulting in up to
03:18600,000 dosages
03:20per monthly shipment of 600 liters, which has a conservative street value of $3 million a month,
03:27and over $40 million in the 14 months that this indictment covers. We've seized over 75 pounds of
03:35methamphetamine, much of it with 90% purity, and this represents 140,000 individual dosages with a street
03:45value of over $8.5 million.
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