Federal agents bust drug ring operating near University of Washington campus

Federal agents busted an East African drug trafficking organization operating just steps from the University of Washington campus.

Investigators said the group is connected to violent incidents in the city and operated out of two homes in the University District, with students often going to one of those locations to buy drugs.

According to federal investigators with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the takedown of another trafficking organization running drugs through the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport led to the discovery of this operation operating near the UW campus and selling to students.

“This is what's flowing up and down the streets of Seattle every single day based upon this organization,” HSI Special Agent In Charge Robert Hammer said. Federal agents were able to monitor the suspects’ electronic communications, leading them to drug houses in the University District where the organization operated.

“This organization was sophisticated,” U.S. Attorney of the Western District of Washington Tessa Gorman said. “They used codes, they changed phones, they did counter surveillance tactics, and they engaged in significant violence.”

Nearly 600 officers and 15 tactical teams from around the country were involved in the federal operation to take down the East African drug trafficking ring on Oct. 30. Federal agents seized 50 guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, Glock switches and silencers, as well as fentanyl, cocaine, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry.

Federal investigators will be checking the guns seized in this operation with other open investigations to see if these guns were used in any other crimes.

“The leader organization was gunned down outside a University District location called ‘The House,’” Gorman said. “A second location in the University District they called ‘The Office,’ and that's where they sold pills and that was right next to university buildings and dorms where students live and learn.”

Federal investigators said the group is also linked to violence throughout the city, which was documented on social media.

“The killings, the murders, the shootings have been prevalent throughout this organization and their co-conspirators,” Hammer said. “The brazenness of this drug trafficking organization was on full display, both from the various media reports that have existed over time and related to violence in the city, but also on the drug trafficking organization's social media accounts themselves, where they put it out there to be proud of the violence that they were exuding on this city, frequently showing guns, Glock switches, hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash flowing through counting machines, racing up and down the streets of Seattle, all the while displaying inside the vehicles short barreled AK-47s, pistols with Glock switches.”

More than a dozen people are now facing charges related to the trafficking organization, including one man, Khalil Ahmed, 26, of Kent, who is also facing gun charges related to a fatal shooting at a hookah lounge in August of 2023 that left three dead and six people, including Ahmed, injured. Federal investigators said Ahmed also supplied guns to members of this operation.

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Other individuals facing federal criminal charges related to this trafficking operation include: