( MIDDLETOWN, OH ) -- Twelve individuals, including one auxiliary officer with the Seven Mile Police Department, have been indicted on charges of being involved in an international drug and money laundering ring.
U.S. District Attorney Benjamin Glass says fentanyl would be sent up from Mexico, distributed in MIddletown, the money would be sent to San Diego, laundered, and then sent back to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel in Mexico.
Glass says the indictments could not have happened without the undercover operation in San Diego first. He says they followed the money from San Diego that came from Middletown and other cities across the U.S. that would then be laundered and go back to the cartel in Mexico.
All local people named in the indictment are currently in custody. Three of the individuals named are in Mexico, and Glass says that local authorities are working closely with the FBI and international law enforcement agencies to bring those individuals back to Ohio to be prosecuted.