Federal agents bust a drug ring operating near the University of Washington campus

SEATTLE— Federal agents have busted an East African drug trafficking organization operating just steps from the University of Washington campus.

Investigators say the group has been involved in violent incidents in the city and operates out of two homes in the University District, with students often going to one of those locations to buy drugs.

According to federal investigators with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the arrest of another drug trafficking organization that was transporting drugs through the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport led to the operation being discovered near the UW campus and sold to students.

“This is what flows through the streets of Seattle every day based on this organization,” said HSI Special Agent In Charge Robert Hammer. Federal agents were able to monitor the suspects’ electronic communications, which led them to drugstores in the University District where the organization operated.

“This organization was sophisticated,” said Tessa Gorman, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. “They used codes, they changed phones, they countered surveillance tactics and they engaged in significant violence.”

Nearly 600 officers and 15 tactical teams from across the country were involved in the federal operation Oct. 30 to take down the East African drug trafficking ring. Federal agents seized 50 guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, Glock switches and silencers. such as fentanyl, cocaine and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry.

Federal investigators will review the weapons seized during this operation along with other ongoing investigations to see if these weapons were used in other crimes.

“The leadership organization was shot outside a location in the University District called ‘The House,’” Gorman said. “They called a second location in the university district ‘The Office’ and they sold pills there and it was right next to university buildings and dormitories where students live and learn.”

Federal investigators said the group has also been linked to violence across the city, which was documented on social media.

“The murders, the murders and the shootings are widespread within this organization and their co-conspirators,” Hammer said. “The brutality of this drug trafficking organization was on full display, both from the various media reports that have emerged over time relating to the violence in the city, but also on the social media accounts of the drug trafficking organization itself, where they brought it out. to be proud of the violence they unleashed on this city, regularly displaying guns, Glock switches, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash flowing through the counting machines, running through the streets of Seattle, making short work of them in the vehicles see barreled AK-47s, pistols with Glock switches.”

More than a dozen people now face charges related to the human trafficking ring, including one man, Khalil Ahmed, 26, of Kent, who also faces weapons charges related to a fatal shooting at a hookah lounge in August 2023 killing three and injuring six people, including Ahmed. Federal investigators said Ahmed also supplied weapons to members of this operation.

Other individuals facing federal criminal charges in connection with this human trafficking operation include:

Anteneh Tesfaye, 39, of Edmonds
Michael Janisch, 25, of Mercer Island
Ali Kuyateh, 49, of Seattle
Cooper Sherman, 27, of Seattle
Alvin Whiteside, 51, of Federal Way
Muhamed Ceesay, 27, of Lynnwood
Lamin Saho, 38, of Everett
Oche Poston, 31, of Everett
Jaquan Means, 45, of Bellevue
Dominque Sanders, 34, of Everett
Patrick Smith, 27, of Edmonds
Matthew Robinson, 37, of Everett
Yohannes Wondimagegnehu, 35, of Seattle