All right. Good afternoon everybody. I'm Penelis County Sher Sheriff Bob Walter and we're here today to announce the dismantling of a significant drug trafficking organization that's been operating here in Penllis County. As you'll hear more about in a couple minutes, this investigation was conducted with support from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's SAFE grant funding program. And here with me today is FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass. This Penllis County based drug trafficking or organization operated here for the last couple of years. The organization has acquired and distributed in Penllis County and throughout the Tampa Bay area multiple kilograms of cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine, and tens of thousands of fake oxycodone pills containing fentanyl and fake aderall pills containing methamphetamine. The investigation involved the use of court authorized wire taps and other forms of electronic surveillance. And I want to recognize the Panelis Pasco State Attorney's Office under the leadership of state attorney Bruce Bartlett as they have been an integral partner with us throughout this entire investigation. We identified about 25 people mainly in the Clearwater area of Penllis County and some in Pasco County who are part of this drug conspiracy that put large amounts of drugs on our streets over the last several years. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, we arrested 19 people. We serve search warrants at six locations around Clearwater that resulted in the seizure of over two kilograms or 4.4 pounds of cocaine, 6 ounces of fentanyl, 24 ounces or about 1.5 pounds of methamphetamine, and numerous fake oxycodone pills that contain fentanyl, and fake aderal pills that contain methamphetamine. We also seized a pill press, an AK-47, another rifle, seven handguns, one of which was stolen, over 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and $41,000 in cash. Our investigation began in August of 2024 when we learned that Sophia Carro, Cubo, who lived in Clearwater, was selling cocaine along with her boyfriend at the time, Alejandro Deleó. An undercover Penelis County Sheriff's Office detective made an initial purchase of what's called an eightball or 3.5 grams, a very small amount of cocaine from Corbero and Dleon. Now, based on their conversations, that was kind of an introductory type buy. Uh based on other conversations, it was evident that Cberro was capable of supplying larger cocaine quantities and that she could also supply the undercover detective with large quantities of methamphetamine. Cobbero told the detective that she would sell amounts of ounces of cocaine for about $1,100 and ounces of methamphetamine for about $250. So between August of 2024 and February of 2025, detectives made numerous undercover purchases of cocaine and methamphetamine from Quebero and Dleó. Now during the course of the investigation and during that period of time, detectives also identified Ali Aia as one of Corbero's sources of supply for the cocaine. And as you can see, these people are up here on the charts. Uh, and I'll talk a little bit more about it here in a second. The AIA family is all up at the top and Sophia Corbro is the first one in the second row uh there on the chart. During the investigation, we also learned that Ali Aya was involved with his brother Hadar Aya and Molar Gorgi and making fake oxycodone pills using fentinel and aderal. And what they were doing with this was people can get oxycodone, you can get aderal, pharmaceutical, it's got its kind components to it, but the fake aderal is used making methamphetamine. And the fake oxy is used is made using fentanyl. So that they were using a pill press uh and commercially available pill binder to press the pills again to look like these blue oxycodone M30 or 30 mgram pills that are pharmaceutical in nature. And again the orange pills which are the aderall were used were were made using the methamphetamine. So during this period, undercover detectives continued to buy cocaine from Corbero and Dion uh that was being sourced to them by Ali Aia and the price decreased from the $1,100 an ounce down to $750 an ounce again because of the quantities that were being purchased. Corbro was also obtaining cocaine to sell to the undercover detectives from another local drug dealer dealer who's up here on the charts and that is Kevin Muth. Now, it's common uh for people, especially mid-level drug traffickers, to get their drugs from multiple sources of supply. So, that's what was happening here is is that she was getting cocaine from the AIA. She was getting cocaine from Muth and from other people, and she was selling it to a variety of people. That's how the drug trade works. Aliatia, who was also involved with his brother Ahmed Aatia in the drug transactions, and Ahmed delivered cocaine to Qubero to sell to the undercover detectives. So what was becoming evident is that Ali Atia and Ahmed Atia were part of this ATA family drug distribution organization. The base of operations and the pill making uh involved fentanyl and methylmphetamines was at the family residence at 15 North Fernwood Avenue in Clearwater, apartment number 13. So it's right off of Drew Street, right by St. Pete College up off Drew Street uh in Clearwater. So, beginning in about December of 2024, uh, undercover detectives began purchasing fake oxycodone pills from Quebeo, which again she was getting from Ali Aia. Corbro initially sold the pills for about $20 each, and the quantities of the pills increased, the price decreased. The price eventually decreased down to about $9 a pill that detectives were paying for the fake oxies and aderal. During the same time, Corbero was also selling ounces of straight methamphetamine to the undercover detectives. So what became obvious uh by early 2024 is that this entire Atia family uh the people here at the top which included the mother Alam Raheem the father and I'll spell his first name T T A W FIQ and the last name is Al Mal KI and the brothers Aliatia Amedatia Hadaria and Safeatia were operating this large-scale drug trafficking organization from this home on Fernwood Avenue in Clearwater. And again, they were selling kilograms of cocaine, pounds of methamphetamine, fake oxycodone that was really fentanyl, and fake aderall that was really methamphetamine. And they were selling in the pills probably between six and 10,000 pills a month is what they were distributing. Now, they all had their roles in this organization. Uh Alam Raheem was kind of the chief executive officer, the CEO. She handled the business matters of the organization, told people what to do and kind of was the the ring leader or the orchestrator of it and directed their activities. Safe who's up there at the top uh and about the looks like the fifth one over uh from the left as you're looking at the chart is is that he was the pill guy. He had the recipe uh for putting the pills together and pressing the pills. Hadar, he obtained the pill binder that Safe used to make the pills and then he was also involved in distributing the drugs as were most of the rest of the family members that are up there. The AIA family sold their drugs to again various mid-level drug traffickers who would sell them to others including our undercover detectives. So, some of the people that you see on these boards were arrested on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Part of the ongoing investigation and to kind of clarify some of their roles, explain what they are, one of the people up there is Crystal Arnold. Uh, she was obtaining kilograms of cocaine from Hadar AIA, Molar Gorgi, Gury, who was obtaining cocaine, fentanyl, and methamphetamine and pills from Hadar and Ali Aia. And then Gorgi, he decided to be an entrepreneur all uh in unto himself. He obtained his own pill press and he used the Atas pill recipe and began his own pill distribut. I'm sorry, distribution organization. When we serve search warrants at his home here in Largo off road on Monday morning, he had numerous pills uh in a safe in his residence. So to sum up the investigation, undercover detectives made about 20 purchases of drugs from the AIA organization between August of 2024 and April 2025. Detectives purchased about one pound of cocaine, about 2,200 fake oxycodone and aderal pills that again contain fentanyl and methamphetamine. Uh we arrested uh 19 people uh on Monday and Tuesday on 113 different drug charges ranging from armed drug trafficking to simple possession of the drugs. Many of these people are facing minimum mandatory 25-year prison sentences in the Florida Department of Corrections. Uh and with the exception of the parents with the exception of Alam Raheem and Tif Akamali all of these people every single one of them have extensive criminal histories. They've been arrested multiple times before on drug trafficking charges as well as many of them for being felons in possession of guns. And as you can see, we seized more guns, AR and AR-15 and handguns in this investigation today. And as they should, these people all face significant prison sentences. Not just because of those prior arrests for the drug crimes where obviously they didn't learn their lesson, but because of the danger that they're placing others in by duping people into thinking that they're buying oxycodone and aderall when they're really buying fentanyl and methamphetamine. And as we know, fentanyl has caused the worst drug epidemic in the history of our country. It's 100 times more potent than morphine, 50 times more potent than heroin, and has literally caused the deaths of thousands of people across the United States. And that's why the Florida legislature has strengthen the penalties for fentanyl trafficking. And selling an ounce or more of fentanyl um in in these cases, it's four grams or more will result in a 25-year minimum mandatory sentence in state prison. And it's also the reason why the the legislature and the state of Florida through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has uh provided significant funding to local law enforcement agencies to conduct these investigations. And I'm going to turn it over now to FDLA Commissioner Mark Glass who will talk more about the safe program and the state funding. Thank you, Sheriff. Appreciate it. First off, I just want to say that uh Sheriff Calter is one of the strongest partners in the state with us uh in this this fight. And as this second time I've been here within few short months that we have these uh press conferences showing the great work that the Panelis County Sheriff's Office is doing to combat this epidemic and this problem in our communities. And Sheriff, I just want to say thank you to you and your detectives and your deputies that are out there uh fighting the fight every day. I'm FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass and I just wanted to say that um we at FDLE are here to support all our local law enforcement and our county law enforcement agencies. Uh this is not one agency can do this. This takes all of us. And I've said this before, this takes you, the listener here watching this press conference. It takes you. the tips you give in, the things that you can call to give the tip lines to the sheriff's departments is crucial because those that one little tip you may give will uncover an operation like this. Now, the Florida safe initiative uh Governor DeSantis brought that into fruition in 2023 with a legislator with legislation and it was been one of the best I will say the best in my time or best criminal justice program ever. And kind of just to give you a little bit of stats on that. Uh this is the second year we've done this and we have a lot more stuff statewide in u operations that are going on outside even Penelis County that is that is happening. But all the stats you just heard the sheriff call Terry give Adam add them to what I'm about to tell you. So total seizures we've we've seized 381 pounds of fentanyl in just about a year and a half, not quite two years. Over 57,000 uh fentanyl pills. And as you heard the how everybody's getting these pill presses and it makes it even more dangerous because somebody's thinking that they got grandmothers or somebody family members uh pill that they think is legit and it's not. You have these yahoos doing what they're doing and not mixing it right, not being like a pharmaceutical company and they're selling it and ping it up to your kids and to other members in your community. We've had 482 pounds of cocaine seized. You just talked about the methamphetamine piece. 295 pounds of methamphetamine, over $4 million seized, $4 million seized, and we have done already a total of 1500 over 1500 arrest, 1518 to be exact, and uh of course you got these to add to it. So 1,500 arrest in this type of operations. Now, what we provide with the safe program is to give law enforcement opportunities, whether it be overtime monies, whatever they need to combat this in your community. So, we are thankful for the partnership, sir. Uh, and we thank you for your your professionalism and and your folks here have been fantastic. But I will tell you, Penelis County has really protecting Penllis County and others outside of Penllis County. The Tampa Bay area is one of the strongest partnerships we have, and I commend everything that goes on down here because it's been great. Uh the sheriff here has been a fantastic partner and Governor DeSantis and uh Attorney General Umire and our cabinet and our legislators are really paying attention to this type of uh type of effect that we're doing on the on the drug war. Uh and this stuff here affects us all. Not one family is immune to this. Not mine, not yours. Not one family is immune to this. It all affects us. So please thank you for your time and and also I want to really get back out there. Give a tip. If you have a tip, get it to your sheriff's department or your local police department so they can actually work it and run it. Okay. Thank you, Sheriff. I appreciate you. Anybody have any questions? Is there any way to tell the difference between a legit pill and a one of these people made or Yeah, it's pretty hard because that's why they press them and they use the binders they do and they mimic the color. So what they were mimicking here was the M30 or the 30 mgram oxy pill and they try and make it look like, you know, the legit oxy pill that you would get at a pharmacy, whether it's, you know, Walgreens, CVS, or wherever. And and so it's hard. Uh and that is really the danger of it, you know, because people are addicted and when they're addicted, they got to get it from some place. And sometimes people get addicted because they got it for legitimate reasons. they got a prescription for it, they get addicted, then they can't get off and they're not getting more scripts, so they get it from the street. But there's the problem is is that if you're using it according to how it's prescribed, that's one thing. But when you're using it, it's got fentanyl in it. And depends upon how they are mixing the fentanyl in and the quantities of fentanyl and the strength. That's where people end up dying with these pills. You know, we've had uh problems over time uh where we've had people using pill presses and putting fentanyl in it and people think they're getting A and they get B and they die from it. So, it's really dangerous and it's very difficult. So, the lesson on that is is that if you need Oxy or you need any type of pharmaceutical, get it from a pharmacy. Don't buy it on the street. Can you talk a little more about this pill press? You know, how often does this item pop up in these kinds of investigations? And what stood out to you about this one in particular? Well, this one in particular, I mean, you can see the pill press. It's up there, you know, in your top left. Uh, and when we served the search war there in Fernwood, they had it stuck up in the ceiling tiles. They were hiding it in there. Uh, we had heard from telephone conversations. As I mentioned, this case involved wire taps and listening on phones is at times they were hiding it in the backyard and they were burying it. This is there's really nothing super unique about it. Uh, it's an automated one and they can crank out a lot of pills with it. Um they're very they're becoming more common. Uh you can get them off the internet and and the in the binding material you use for the pill the color the blue and the orange you can buy that off the internet. So uh and the other thing with this is it doesn't take a lot of fentanyl. So when you can get really overall, okay, in the big scheme of things, you can get relatively small amounts of fentanyl because when you mix it with that binder and it creates the pill, then you're getting larger quantities and you're able to distribute it. Now, the sad part for them is there's a lesson for people in this is you own it by the weight and because the law says is that if it is uh four grams or more of in this case fentanyl or heroin or any of these other opioids where four grams is the threshold for a trafficking charge is is four grams of that or a combination or mixture thereof. So, you can have a flake of fentanyl and the rest of it's all binder. Do you own the total weight? And this is where these people and they should because it's killing people and going to state prison uh and a lot of these people are looking at multiple multiple 25-y year minimum mandatories. 25-year minimum mandatory in the Florida Department of Corrections, as it shouldn't be, is not fun. uh but because of the really the jeopardy they're putting others in and not caring and you know it's it there needs to be harsh consequences for it because of the threat to the public. You mentioned three locations in Clear Water, the one house on Fernwood and and where else? So we served uh search warrants a total of six search warrants. One of them is down here in Largo offer road that was Gorgi's residence. Uh we served two on Dolphin Drive uh out in the Iowa Estates area of Clearwater. Uh we had the one up off of uh Fernwood and another one down off of Karn Boulevard. So those are the locations that we we serve search wars at on Monday morning. No business. What's that? No business. No business. All residences in one storage unit. And you said they were also working in Pasco County, right? So in Pasco County is that the people who were hanging out are living up there. So all the drug distribution of the majority of it was here in Penllis. The people were Penllis people, but as again they all move around and they move back and forth. So some of them had moved up to the one of them uh had as you can see and he's wearing that green uh as opposed to the orange. That's because he was booked into the Pasco County Jail as opposed to the Penllis County Jail. So he was over in Zephr Hills. That's where he was staying. But majority of their activity was all here in Penllis. Some of them were putting their heads on various occasions up in Pasco. So that's really the tie to Pascal. I know you mentioned Sophia kind of led you to the family. Is is the family considered like the head of the operation? So say that again. I know you mentioned Sophia kind of brought you to the bigger traffickers. Would you say the family is the the head of the organization? Yeah. So, so really here is Alam Raheem who's the mom is the she was the boss as I said, you know, she's kind of the CEO and uh Ali, he was selling dope to Sophia. And so we get into Sophia, we're buying dope from Sophia and we do our investigation. We look at it and so Sophia is the one that was getting dope from the Aias, but the Aias were also selling dope to a whole lot of people other than Sophia because that's how it works. And so you Sophia was also getting dope as I mentioned from others. So she was getting dope not only from the but she was also getting dope from Kevin Muth and others. This is still an ongoing investigation. I would anticipate that we'll be making more arrests uh is things progress. Um but yeah, Sophia is the one that we started the investigation with and then uh were able to identify the atas based upon the investigation into Soph Sophia Kaduri. You said the investigation started in August and shortly there after we had those two memorable hurricanes. Your agency was taxed. you know, can you talk about the impact those storms may have had on both their operation and your Yeah, I mean, you you know, you I don't know. I can't speak to the the impact it had on uh their uh drug distribution uh activity other than you know, I'm sure it like everybody else sold it down for a little while, but you know, it it it the hurricanes really didn't impact us investigatively. Uh we're able to get it done. Is there anything significant with the car? The white thing? Well, the car Yeah. So the car uh which was seized up in Zephr Hills and it's the one that had is is that just shows you the cars they were driving but that car in particular was stolen uh out of North Miami Beach. Uh it's a pretty hyped up Jeep uh fast and its original color was red. Uh they painted it white and we had to identify it uh by getting into the vehicle identification number in the gas tank and then we're able to find out that it was um stolen out of North Miami Beach. So it just shows the magnitude of the these people are just criminals. You know, they don't know what it's like to have a job. They don't know what it's like to go to work every day. They just engage in crime. And again, look at the number of guns and all the other activity that they're into. So that car came out of uh North Miami Beach. So it seems like there's two different families that were the head of the operation like the ATS and then the I forgot the other. Well, yeah. And I know it gets a little confusing, but that's why I put the ATS all up here at the top. So you had again mom, dad, uh you got the kids. Um and they all had their roles. Uh like safe was over there, the fifth one over there uh left to right for you. is that he pretty much stayed at Fernwood all the time and he had the recipe for the pills and he was the pill press guy. He you know whether he sold some maybe occasionally but he's pretty much the pill press guy. So they all are running the operation getting the fentanyl to put it into the pills getting kilos of cocaine selling kilos of cocaine selling meth selling whatever drugs and all these people we we would call it poly drug meaning multiple drugs they don't really care what they're selling as long as they can sell drugs and make money. So, in this case, they're selling fentanyl, they're selling cocaine, they're selling methamphetamine, they're selling whatever it is. And you can really really uh expand that and make a lot of money when you start to take really tiny amounts of fentanyl and put it in pills and you can sell these pills. So, like when we first started buying the pills, because we weren't buying high quantity, we were paying $20 a pill. So, on the street, you know, when you're selling them at the street level, some of these M30s, the fake oxies that are 30 milligram, you can get as much as $30 a pill. Now, we got it down to nine because we're buying big bags and big quantities of the stuff. Um, but that's all their role and what they were doing. These people down here, some of them were getting drugs from the ATS. Some of them in the case of because he just was involved with it. Kevin Muth is that he was a source of supply for cocaine to Sophia Cberro. Um, and then you've got uh Crystal Arnold. She's another one. Is that she was getting kilos of cocaine. uh from the uh from the the itas. So, you know, it's just a whole lot of people. It's what drug dealers do. It's not like a regular business where you've got a strict organizational chart and everybody follows the lines. These people don't know rules. They don't follow the laws. It's really what it comes down to is how many people do you know that you can get dope from and how many people can you sell dope from, sell dope to and how much money can you make. So, it all gets squiggly lines back and forth because that's how they operate. You said the one guy had the pill press when he was making the pills. Is it illegal just to make the pills or did he get I mean I don't I you know I can't think of a reason maybe there is I don't know one why why anybody would want to make pills but I mean simply if you just wanted to get pill binder and you know make a pill you can as long as it doesn't have a controlled substance in it I guess you can make whatever you want. Um, for what purpose? I don't know. But what makes it illegal is because of obviously the fentanyl and the methamphetamine and the controlled substances. All right. Thanks everybody. Appreciate it. Make it.