By Tim McGlone
Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK, Va. — Federal agents said Wednesday that they have cracked a 10-year, $33 million cocaine distribution ring centered on several Virginia Beach nightclubs, including Club Mystique and the defunct Ba Da Bing.
The Drug Enforcement Administration arrested four suspects, charging two with leading the drug conspiracy and two others with laundering proceeds from the sales of crack and cocaine.
The amount of cocaine and crack involved was “staggering,” a federal agent said. More than 1.5 tons of the drugs were distributed throughout the region by the ring leaders and their subordinates, agents said.
David E. Bragg Jr. and Jovan D. Hassell are accused of distributing more than 1,500 kilograms of crack and cocaine, or 3,300 pounds, worth an estimated $33 million wholesale.
Two others named in a criminal complaint, Percy J. Tucker and Robert G. McFadden, were charged with laundering the drug proceeds through various businesses, including the nightclubs, trucking companies and a purported record label.
The suspects made their initial appearance Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court. U.S. Magistrate Judge F. Bradford Stillman ordered the four suspects jailed pending bond hearings Friday afternoon.
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherrie Capotosto, declined to comment after the proceeding.
The DEA with local police used a number of informants to gather evidence against the ring. The complaint, unsealed Wednesday, says Bragg was a small-time drug peddler in Norfolk’s Berkeley section through the 1990s but turned to kilo quantities by 2003.
By then, Bragg had hooked up with a cocaine supplier in Atlanta, the complaint says. Bragg frequently rented Dodge Caravans for the trips “because the speaker panels are easily removable and provided enough space to hide approximately 10 kilos of cocaine and as much as $200,000 in cash,” the complaint says. Bragg and Hassell worked together, the complaint says, pooling their money while distributing 2 to 10 kilos of cocaine a week, in part through a stash house in the Briarwood section of Virginia Beach.
By 2004, Bragg and Hassell were making so much money they decided to form corporations as a way to hide the cash, the complaint says. They purchased trucks with drug proceeds, hiring drivers to make legitimate deliveries of goods across the country while paying the drivers with drug money, the complaint says.
By 2006, the two men had bought matching $90,000 Mercedes-Benz sedans and half-million-dollar homes, all while claiming no taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service, the complaint says.
Bragg and Hassell also are accused of hiring Tucker and McFadden to help launder the money through bogus corporations. Tucker established some 20 corporations while McFadden handled their tax returns, the complaint says.
“Many of these have been set up to pose as backdrops for this group’s money laundering activities,” the complaint says.
Bragg, Hassell and Tucker are charged with laundering drug proceeds through the trucking companies and the nightclubs Ba Da Bing, formerly at the Oceanfront, and Club Mystique, Shakespeare’s, and the after-hours private club Summer Shakes, all on General Booth Boulevard.
Copyright 2009 Virginian-Pilot