Today’s Advocate has a stellar John Nickerson story on the FBI investigation of Washington Village’s drug dealers.

But after the 18-month operation by the FBI’s Safe Streets Task Force snared 22 men and women, each later convicted for drug dealing, and seized several kilograms of narcotics, eight guns and more than $20,000 in cash, Detective Terry Blake, an 11-year department veteran, said the public housing complex on Water Street is a much safer place to live.

Standing inside Washington Village about 10 days ago just before school let out, Blake, 34, looked over an empty playground.

That wasn’t always the way it was in the 136-unit tidy brick complex bounded by Water Street to the east, Day Street to the west and Raymond Street to the north.

“Washington Village is not like it was. There is no one standing on the corner dealing crack. The violence and continued shootings have stopped,” Blake said.

Norwalk police Chief Harry Rilling said, “Any time you have criminals infiltrate a housing authority property, it affects the quality of life significantly and people don’t feel safe.”

And when a large number of criminals are removed from the streets of Norwalk as the result of one long-term investigation that operation has to be deemed a triumph, Rilling said.

Remember all that talk abotu whether there were gangs in Norwalk?

The federal investigation had all the elements of a big-city crime thriller, replete with the attempted murder of a federal witness at point blank range, the discovery of 300 grams of crack cocaine stashed in the stone wall of an elite Stamford prep school, hidden trap doors in cars filled with drugs and guns, and the wiretapping of tens of thousands of cell phone calls. Although the investigation had been reported in bits and pieces, the full story of how it brought down a pair of Stamford’s leading drug dealers has never been told.

According to a recently unsealed 46-page sworn affidavit by FBI Special Agent Christopher Munger, Washington Village — the oldest public housing complex in the state, having opened in 1941 — had been an open-air drug market operated by the Washington Village Bloods gang since 2000.

In a commendation to the Safe Streets Task Force, which counted Blake as a member from 2006 to earlier this year, U.S. Attorney Tracy Lee Dayton described the area prior to the operation: “One need only stand on the corner of Raymond Street in Norwalk and watch the procession of cars traveling into and out of Washington Village to recognize the plague of narcotics trafficking that had descended upon the residents of that community.”

The crime trail covered Stamford prep schools, New Canaan High School students, Ryan Park, secret stashes and people named Isni “Ease” Gjuraj, Arbnor “Cookie” Gjini and Antonio “Biggie Smalls” Robinson. Like Nickerson said, right out of the pages of a crime thriller.

After pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine, Gjini was sentenced in August to 14 years in prison and 10 years supervised release.

Davis, 33, pleaded guilty to one count of retaliating against a witness and one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. At his sentencing, scheduled for March, he faces a maximum life sentence for his role in the informant’s shooting.

Robinson, 38, pleaded guilty to retaliating against a witness and one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine; he faces a mandatory minimum 20 years or a maximum life sentence behind bars.

In August, Stevens was sentenced to 14 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than 50 grams or more of crack cocaine.

Blake, now an investigator in the Police Department’s detective bureau, said he was happy to have helped the community be safer.

source: Advocate, Major past Norwalk drug investigation still reverberates, By John Nickerson, 11/28/2009