BREVARD COUNTY, Fla.,None — Federal agents arrested 11 suspects for trafficking drugs into Brevard County, nine of them were arrested Thursday. Agents said they were running a significant amount of cocaine from south Florida.
SUSPECTED DEALERS: Raw Video | See Images
WFTV was there Thursday as nine of the suspects were taken from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office on Merritt Island to the federal courthouse in Orlando.
"Why are you selling the drugs?" WFTV reporter Daralene Jones asked one suspect.
Ricardo Riley responded to Jones by kissing the camera, but he can kiss his freedom goodbye if federal prosecutors have their way.
Investigators said they were trafficking cocaine along I-95 from south Florida and selling it all over Brevard County.
"You guys like selling drugs?" Jones asked suspect Kennedy Harris.
"I don't sell drugs. I work," Harris replied.
"What do you do for a living?" Jones asked.
"Paving, supervisor for the paving company," he said.
"They let you sell drugs there?"
"No," Harris replied.
Brevard County investigators worked with Titusville police and the feds on the case that was sparked a couple of months ago by a small drug sale. Investigators said, as they looked further into that case, they found the group was in deep.
Investigators won't say how much the suspects made, but Parker said the group was at the top of the drug game.
"They were dealing in as much as a kilo a day," Brevard County Sheriff J.R. Parker said.
One kilo is 2.2 pounds, and the sheriff told WFTV the suspects probably paid $30,000 for it and made a lot more than that once it was chopped up.
"They said you're selling a kilo a day?" Jones said to suspect Levester Brown.
"Okay, a kilo, God. A kilo a day? A kilo a day. Well, find the money, find those kilos," Brown said.
WFTV was told Brown's wife is a school teacher.
Most of the suspects will serve at least ten years in federal prison if convicted. The others could be there 25 years, because they've already been to prison before for the same crime.
Investigators also arrested two other people last week related to this case.