CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – A 33rd person has been arrested in connection with an FBI drug ring bust.
On Monday, U.S. Marshals arrested Rondric “Fudge” Smith, according to a press release from Mikayla Moskov, with the Horry County Police Department. Smith was “the final person wanted in connection with the FBI drug ring bust entitled ‘Operation Rise and Shine,’ which was first revealed last December.”
U.S. Marshals took Smith into custody around 4 p.m. on Kimberly Drive in the Conway area with assistance from HCPD’s Street Crimes Unit and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Smith faces federal, state, and local charges.
In December, US Attorney Sherri Lydon announced a operation targeting Horry County gang members involved in a federal drug trafficking conspiracy.
The indictment was unsealed on December 13 and included 46 counts against 27 different defendants.
Lydon said the covert operation began in 2017 and targeted “G-Shine,” a gang in the Horry County community. The group was formerly known as the “Gangster Killer Bloods”, a gang that evolved from United Blood Nation. Agents used undercover surveillance, confidential source information, and other techniques to establish the agreement between co-conspirators to sell various drugs.
The indictment charges the defendants with forming an agreement to distribute heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana and charges several with the actual distribution of these drugs and the use of “wireless communications devices” to further the organization’s drug trafficking activity.
The full indictment can be read here.
