OH: Federal Sting Nets Drugs, Guns

(Mansfield, Ohio) Federal undercover agents set up a storefront in Mansfield in a year-long sting operation targeting narcotics and weapons traffickers.

The operation concluded yesterday with a press conference at the Richland County Sheriff's Office.

The sting was a cooperative effort between U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach's office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Richland County Sheriff's and prosecutor's offices.

Agents seized 70 firearms, 1,316 grams of cocaine, 768 grams of crack, 1,099 oxycodone pills, 215 ecstasy pills, 199 vicodin pills, 5 grams of heroin and 36 pills of Aprazolam.

Federal and Richland County prosecutors indicted 64 people who sold and traded guns and drugs to undercover agents who ran a bogus storefront in Mansfield for more than a year.

The ATFE reportedly led the operation.