2-year investigation dismantles Orlando-based drug ring

Peter Truong among those arrested

ORLANDO, Fla. – A two-year investigation involving 10 local and federal law enforcement agencies has dismantled a drug-trafficking organization based in Orlando.

Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings, along with agents from the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation  the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations, identified who they said were 10 members of a trafficking organization based out of Orlando with connections to Miami, California, Colorado and New York.

According to the MBI Director Ron Stucker, members of the organization trafficked and conspired to traffic in Oxycodone, cocaine and hundreds of pounds of cannabis. The organization transported illegal drugs across the country in semitrailers for distribution in Central Florida, officials said. The ring was led by Peter Truong, 39, a man Stucker said is known by law enforcement, according to authorities.

"He was doing this through a trucking company that he owned, PNT Trucking," Stucker said. "He owned three different semitractor trailers, and these tractor-trailers would be dispatched across the country to California and Colorado, where they would pick up loads of drugs and make their way back across the country, stopping at various places and then eventually coming back to Orlando."

Search warrants were issued at six addresses, including several homes in east Orange County, Orlando and Apopka, and two businesses listed as "Art of Fades" and "Cloud 9."

Five of the culprits are outstanding and investigators says some may have already left the state. If caught, they face a long list of charges.

"Under Florida statute, (for) some of the most serious charges we'd be looking at 25 years in prison," Stucker said.

MBI, DEA and HSI were assisted in the investigation by Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, the Orlando Police Department, the Winter Garden Police Department, the Apopka Police Department, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Marshals Service.

 


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