CLEVELAND — The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio and Drug Enforcement Administration officials held a press conference at 1 p.m. on Tuesday to announce the indictment and arrests of alleged members of a drug trafficking organization in the city of Cleveland.
The individuals arrested include:
- Christopher Ficklin, Cleveland Heights
- Robert Atkinson, Cleveland
- David Gomez-Orrantio
The three men are accused of being a part of an operation that brought more than 1,100 pounds of cocaine to Cleveland from Mexico. They are accused of sending $13 million back to Mexico in drug trafficking proceeds.
Ficklin and Atkinson were each arrested on Tuesday morning, with an additional 22 pounds of cocaine being found during Atkinson's arrest. Gomez-Orrantio, who is a native of Mexico, was arrested in connection with the indictment at the U.S.-Mexico border over the weekend and had $20,000 on him at the time of his arrest.
It is alleged that in the summer of 2020, Gomez-Orrantio shipped cocaine to a Cleveland warehouse owned by Ficklin. Ficklin proceeded to supply that cocaine to Atkinson and others to be redistributed in the Cleveland area.
More arrests are expected as a result of the years' long investigation.
We streamed the entire press conference, which you can watch in full below:
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Editor's note: Video in the player above was originally published in an unrelated article on Feb. 23, 2022.