U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents charged Thang Ngoc Dang, 37, of 10330 Crestgate Terrace, Unit 105, with trafficking in marijuana by possession and by transportation, both felonies, court records show.
Dang, described in arrest reports as a nail technician with a manicure salon on Wake Forest Road, was arrested March 19 at his home. Agents seized 89 pounds of high-grade marijuana he had just unloaded from an undercover officer's vehicle, according to a search warrant made public this week.
Unknown to Dang, the marijuana he is accused of buying from drug dealers in Canada was under the eye of both Canadian and U.S. authorities."Our undercover agent acted as the facilitator of the transaction," Marc LaPorte, a spokesman with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said Friday. "It would have happened anyway. We just stepped in and did the movement for them."Dang was arrested the same day Canadian authorities arrested four people in Toronto on drug-trafficking and drug-exporting charges. Canadian police also used 12 search warrants to seize 60 pounds of marijuana, three vehicles, 130 cartons of cigarettes, $180,000 in cash and $100,000 in money orders.The arrests were part of an international undercover drug operation Canadian police dubbed "Project OCUJO," LaPorte said. He said an undercover agent who infiltrated the drug ring learned about the American side of the operation.
Canadian police declined to comment when asked whether the drug ring had sent previous shipments of marijuana to Raleigh."Some of those details are still under investigation," said Detective-Inspector Rick Penney with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "I can tell you it wasn't a first-time occurrence."The Toronto drug ring shipped the marijuana to Raleigh after receiving a $300,000 payment, said Donny Hanson, resident agent-in-charge of the DEA's Raleigh office. Canadian police identified Dang for Raleigh DEA agents.According to a search warrant filed this week at the Wake County Clerk of Court's Office, a surveillance team watched as Dang met a DEA undercover agent at O'Charley's restaurant March 19. While the two were in the restaurant, officers put a GPS tracker on Dang's BMW.Raleigh police and federal officers continued to watch as Dang and the agent left the restaurant and as Dang moved the marijuana from the agent's vehicle to the BMW, according to the search warrant. The officers then followed Dang home and surrounded his residence at Bexley at Brier Creek Luxury Apartment Homes.
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