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Federal Drug Charges Filed Against Dozens in Delco

By Tony Hanson

 

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Federal authorities have indicted an allegedly violent Chester, Pa. drug gang, accused of dealing drugs in Delaware County.

US attorney Zane Memeger says these 41 gang members carried guns and sometimes used them in the course of their drug trade.

And to protect their drug operation, officials say, they stashed drugs and guns at playgrounds, and used kids and addicts to deal.

"Throughout the conspiracy, the defendants sold and distributed drugs near protected locations including Widener University, the Frederick Douglass Christian School, the Chester-Upland School of the Arts, Sun Village Park, and the 11th and Upland Streets playground," Memeger noted today.

Delaware County district attorney Jack Whelan says homicides in Chester have reached near-epidemic proportions:  already twnety-four this year.  But he says taking these defendants off the streets will reduce drug trafficking and violence in the city.

 

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