A Wildwood man known as “Goon” was allegedly part of a ring that flew suitcases full of drugs from California to the Orlando International Airport.
Melvin Tyrone Patterson Jr., 31, is among 17 individuals charged last week in federal court with drug trafficking and money laundering as a result of a joint investigation involving numerous agencies.
Over the past six years, the Drug Enforcement Administration has been involved in an investigation into a drug trafficking organization that operates largely out of Lake County with sources of supply or distributors in California, Texas, the eastern United States, and China.
Specifically, Patterson is charged with drug trafficking, money laundering conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute. He faces a possible sentence of 10 years to life in federal prison. In 2017, Patterson was arrested by Wildwood police during a traffic stop in which his companion attempted to use Bud Light beer to quickly wash out a marijuana grinder.
For the past six years, the drug trafficking ring, led by 48-year-old Dudzinski Poole of Apopka, has been responsible for trafficking thousands of kilograms of methamphetamine and fentanyl via commercial planes, trains, and the mail, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Thus far, the DEA has seized more than 250 pounds of drugs (mostly methamphetamine and fentanyl). Couriers flew to California from Florida with large sums of cash to purchase drugs and transport checked luggage full of drugs back to Florida on commercial flights. These flights were typically between the Orlando International Airport and the Palm Springs Airport or the Los Angeles International Airport in California. Flight records during a two-year period show more than 350 flights between California and Orlando among the various conspirators.
Couriers also were used to transport large amounts of methamphetamine from Orlando to Virginia via train. In April 2022, one of these couriers was arrested at a train station in Virginia with approximately 10 pounds of methamphetamine inside a suitcase.
In addition to transporting drugs on commercial flights and trains, Poole and his associates had multiple stash houses and received hundreds of mailed packages of methamphetamine from California and other drugs, including fentanyl, from China. Poole’s source of supply in California would ship packages containing anywhere from one pound to ten or more pounds of methamphetamine at a time. Poole would provide the source of supply various addresses to ship the drugs, including co-conspirators’ residences. Investigators have identified almost 400 packages that were shipped from California as part of this conspiracy from 2021 to 2023.
The members of the ring also conspired with one another to engage in money laundering, according to the indictments. A key aspect of this conspiracy was Poole’s development of an entertainment business that he used to promote concerts with legitimate artists, whom he paid with drug proceeds. Poole then commingled the profits from the ticket sales with the drug proceeds in the same business account.
This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the United States Secret Service; the Orlando Police Department’s Special Enforcement Division and Crime Center and Forensics Division; the Orange County Sheriff’s Office’s Gang Enforcement Unit; the Florida Highway Patrol; the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office; the Casselberry Police Department; the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation; the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office; the Marion County Sheriff’s Office; the Kissimmee Police Department; the St. Cloud Police Department; the Winter Park Police Department, and the St. Cloud IRS Financial Crimes Task Force. It will be prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Tyrie K. Boyer and Belkis H. Crockett.