Kingpins In Los Angeles-To-Detroit Heroin, Cocaine Ring Busted: Feds

LOS ANGELES, CA – Federal authorities are seeking a Detroit fugitive who has been linked to a multi-kilogram shipment of heroin and cocaine seized in a bust at the Los Angeles International Airport last month, the Justice Department said Wednesday. In a complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles Tuesday, Delano “Bop Bop” Leflore, 37, of Detroit, was charged with narcotics offenses that could send him to prison for life.

Also charged is Kevin “Wood” Blair, 45, of Pasadena, California, who was ordered held without bond in a court hearing Tuesday. Both Blair and Leflore are charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine, the Justice Department said in a news release.

The Justice Department said Blair and Leflore are the kingpins in the large-scale operation to ship cocaine and heroin from Los Angeles to Detroit. The complaint follows the seizure of about two kilograms of heroin and one kilogram of cocaine discovered at Los Angeles Airport on March 7 in the luggage of a Detroit woman the Justice Department said acted as a courier for the operation.

Kennsha Mason, 28, was indicted Friday on three counts: conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine, possession with intent to distribute heroin and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Mason, who remains in federal custody in Los Angeles, was scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment Wednesday afternoon.

During their investigation of Mason, agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Los Angeles International Airport Narcotics Task Force developed evidence that Blair and Leflore coordinated the shipment of narcotics that Mason is accused of ferrying to Detroit, federal prosecutors said.

Leflore hired Mason to transport the drugs and made arrangements for her to travel from Detroit to Los Angeles, according to complaint. The government said that once she was in Los Angeles, Mason traveled to a townhouse on South Oakland Avenue in Pasadena, where she met Blair and picked up the drugs discovered in her suitcase.

The Pasadena Police Department arrested Blair Friday on an outstanding Wayne County, Michigan, felony warrant for assault with intent to murder. After he was arrested, authorities found a receipt for a UPS shipment sent from Los Angeles to Detroit, according to the news release.

On Tuesday morning, law enforcement authorities in Michigan intercepted the package Blair is accused of sending by UPS, and they recovered one kilogram of suspected heroin and one ounce of suspected fentanyl, according to the criminal complaint.

Blair was transferred to federal custody after the criminal complaint was filed Tuesday. His preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court is scheduled for April 17, and he is scheduled to be arraigned on April 21.

Photo by Valerie Everett via Flickr Commons