CLEVELAND, Ohio – Federal authorities say they plugged a drug pipeline that flooded Lorain County with more than 42,750 fentanyl pills over the course 17 months.
A federal indictment unsealed this week accused 15 people of peddling the pills to users in Elyria and Lorain. The document alleges that Ronald Whittaker, 31, of Cleveland and Tyvez McCullum, 30, of Elyria led the ring, which ran from May 2023 through last month.
The indictment accuses Whittaker of obtaining kilogram amounts of fentanyl in pill form. He then gave the drugs to McCullum, who distributed them to street dealers, according to the document.
Whittaker and others have appeared in federal court in Cleveland and denied the allegations. McCullum has not been arrested.
The indictment alleges that McCullum often would drive to Whittaker’s home on Prince Avenue on Cleveland’s East Side, stay a short amount of time and then leave to meet others in the ring.
Local and federal drug agents obtained text messages that show the ring used coded language to set up deals. In one text, a dealer asked for a “Three Musketeer” candy bar from a source. The indictment indicates that the dealer was actually seeking 300 fentanyl pills.
“Given its extreme potency, fentanyl is extraordinarily dangerous — it has poisoned and killed over 3,500 Ohioans in 2023 alone,” said Becky Lutzko, the U.S. attorney for northern Ohio.
“Distributing it disguised as legitimate prescription medication, as the indictment alleges the defendants did here, is particularly condemnable because it heightens the overdose danger for those who ingest it.”