LAWMEN FINALLY NET THE 'BIG FISH'

Drug Probe Rounds Up Alleged Key Traffickers

To veteran Mercer County narcotics investigators, Gregory "Lamar"
Gibson was the biggest fish they had never caught.

As the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office Special Investigations Unit
(SIU) made drug cases against other traffickers over the years,
Gibson allegedly sat atop a Trenton-based cocaine empire and
defiantly drove a Bentley around the area, authorities alleged yesterday.

Yesterday, Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph L. Bocchini Jr. announced
the end of "Operation Weeping Willow," a seven-month probe of cocaine
and heroin dealing that sets two unofficial records: It's the biggest
investigation in Mercer County history and it netted the largest haul
of drugs, with 44 pounds of cocaine, 202 bricks of heroin and three
pounds of marijuana taken off the streets.

The operation led to 42 arrests, including Gibson, who was nabbed on Jan. 12.

And the investigation also effectively puts Gibson out of the drug
trade, Bocchini and Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor Jay Hindman
said. The 33-year-old Gibson will be charged federally.

Also snared in the probe was Phong Trinh, 35, a nail salon owner from
Philadelphia whom authorities say was Gibson's cocaine supplier.

The probe also delved into the world of heroin trafficking, where
investigators charged Gibson's neighbor, Corey Spruill, 30, of North
Willow Street in Trenton and Pierce Pack, 29, of Garfield Avenue,
Trenton, with bringing heroin to the city via a livery car and female
couriers, one of whom allegedly got off an NJ Transit train with 110
bricks of heroin.

"This is important for Mercer County," Bocchini said as he laid out
the details of the operation at a press conference at the Dempster
Fire Training Center in Lawrence, along with U.S. Attorney for New
Jersey Chris Christie and Gerard McAleer, special agent in charge of
the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in New Jersey.

Pieces of the probe have become public in recent weeks. When
authorities arrested Gibson in January at his North Willow Street
home, they seized kilos of cocaine, more than 40 motorcycles and
all-terrain vehicles from a warehouse he allegedly controlled across
the street from his house.

A young female suspect who got off a train allegedly with a duffel
bag of heroin destined for Pack in early December was arrested at the
station. And Pack himself was arrested in late January as he and two
other suspects allegedly came back from New York in a livery car
filled with heroin.

Each time, the prosecutor's office was purposefully cagey while
announcing the arrests, saying they were part of an ongoing probe.

Bocchini and his assistants tied it all together yesterday.
Thirty-nine investigators from 21 local, state and federal agencies
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania worked on the probe full time. Another
100 pitched in on a part-time basis

"Without the manpower and resources provided by (agencies) involved,
an investigation of this scope and magnitude would have never been
possible," Bocchini said.

McAleer said the probe is a great example what he called the
"ambidextrous prosecutorial approach" of federal and state
prosecutors working together on a case. And he said that it's
important to note that the closest Gibson will likely get to a
Bentley again is reading a Car and Driver magazine in his prison cell.

"That's the good news here," McAleer said.

Of the 42 arrests, 10 of them were for major players who face drug
distribution charges. The other 32 suspects were described as
"customers," who either bought drugs from Gibson, Pack or Spruill for
personal use, or resold it to others, Hindman said.

The probe started last fall with Spruill, a convicted drug dealer who
lived on the 200 block of North Willow Street. Authorities knew him
as a cocaine and heroin dealer, Bocchini said, and investigators
started watching and buying drugs from him.

That led to Gibson, who lived a few doors away, a man known to
authorities as the biggest cocaine dealer they had never arrested,
Bocchini and Hindman said. With two suspects on Willow Street,
investigators had the operation name.

Investigators learned that Spruill was allegedly getting his cocaine
from Gibson and his heroin from Pack.

While one part of the probe focused on taking down Pack, Bocchini
said, another zeroed in on Gibson, who would allegedly import cocaine
in large amounts, but also step out of his house and make sales right
on North Willow Street.

From October to December, investigators learned that Gibson's
cocaine source was Trinh, a Vietnamese national who allegedly
supplied Gibson monthly, officials said.

The drugs were delivered by a trusted Trinh confidant, Joseph Walker,
27, a Philadelphia native living in Sicklerville, Camden County,
authorities said.

On Jan. 12, the case broke wide open.

With an Air National Guard surveillance plane recording from 5,000
feet in the air, investigators watched as Walker allegedly handed
Gibson a load of cocaine at the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast
Philadelphia, Bocchini said.

Investigators followed Gibson back to Trenton and he was arrested at
the corner of North Stockton and Perry streets, where they seized 10
kilos of cocaine from the back of his vehicle.

Trinh and Walker were apprehended by the DEA in Philadelphia the same
day, and a few days later an additional eight kilos of cocaine were
seized at a Bensalem storage locker rented by Walker, Bocchini said.

Authorities caught up with Spruill last week, arresting him at a
North Willow Street home.