COCAINE-TRAFFICKING RING BROKEN BY FEDS.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

Federal authorities announced Friday they have broken up a cocaine-trafficking ring that laundered more than $270 million over 15 years in an operation that stretched from Michigan to California and Florida.

The organization had ties to the rap music industry, and its two leaders have appeared in rap videos, said Robert L. Corso, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency in Detroit.

The gang was known on the streets as the ``Black Mafia Family,'' Corso said.

``They were in fact just another group of thugs who brought fear, intimidation and violence to the streets of Detroit,'' he said.

Local and federal authorities in Michigan, California, Florida, Kentucky, Texas, Georgia and Mississippi arrested 30 people, including one suspect in Los Angeles, officials said.

Two suspects remained at large, authorities said.

The BMF group was founded by brothers Terry and Demetrius Flenory, who began trafficking crack while in high school in the 1980s, according to the DEA.

The ring expanded into a multimillion dollar criminal enterprise.

``The BMF was a sophisticated drug smuggling and money laundering organization led by brothers that operated in 11 states and had direct links to Mexico-based drug trafficking organizations,'' DEA Administrator Karen P. Tandy said in a statement. ``For too many years, these drug dealers have poisoned our streets and cast shadows of fear across our communities.''

The investigation is part of the DEA's ``Street Light Initiative.'' The initiative was created in June when the DEA led ``Operation Silent Night.'' That investigation led to the arrest of 23 members of the Vineland Boys Street gang in North Hollywood and Burbank.

The suspects face charges that include conspiracy, drug possession with intent to deliver and money laundering, according to a federal grand jury indictment.

U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy said local and federal authorities have been after the ring since 2000 but recently were able to pull several old cases together from different states.