Dozen arrested in biker gang drug sting

Off the Wire
MCs in the News
A Mountain Top man is among 12 people charged in a second wave of arrests related to an investigation into drug dealing by the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

"This wide-ranging organization distributed and sold more than $3.6 million worth of cocaine, serving as a major drug pipeline into northeastern Pennsylvania," state Attorney General Tom Corbett said in announcing the latest arrests in "Operation Avalanche."

"We believe that today's arrests, combined with the 22 drug dealers arrested last March during the first phase of the investigation, have completely dismantled this well-organized drug network."

All 12 suspects were charged with solicitation to deliver cocaine, criminal use of a communications device and possession of cocaine.

They include John Kindler, 54, of South Main Road, Mountain Top. The others live in Nanticoke, Wilkes-Barre, Old Forge, Harveys Lake and Kingston.

They were arraigned Thursday morning by Magisterial District Judge Paul Roberts in Kingston. They all were released on $20,000 unsecured bail. The Luzerne County District Attorney's Office will prosecute the defendants.

The 22 people arrested in the sweeping March 2009 drug raid were mainly upper-level cocaine dealers of the network, while those arrested Thursday "fueled this organization as the upper-level dealers' regular customers," the attorney general's office said.

Authorities cracked the drug ring and made the latest string of arrests through a series of wiretapped phone conversations, video surveillance and undercover drug purchases by the Bureau of Narcotics Investigations.

The local affiliate of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club was based out of a run-down home at 128 N. Main St. in Ashley until agents raided the property March 6. The initial set of charges were filed March 18. At the time, Corbett called the biker gang an "illegal fraternity" used to foster criminal activity.

Authorities have said the biker gang takedown began when investigators were told Luzerne County corrections officer John "G Unit" Gonda, 38, of White Haven, "was selling large quantities of cocaine in the Wilkes-Barre area."

Investigators said the probe originated after Sam Hyder, then deputy warden of the Luzerne County Correctional Facility, passed along information from a source that Gonda was dealing drugs in the area. Investigators said they then met with informants who linked Gonda to cocaine, marijuana and heroin sales, and that led them to additional defendants.

Gonda pleaded guilty to the charges in December.

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