Cross Country Drug Smuggling Operation Busted By Police
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Six local males are in the Bucks Conty Prison, waiting for their trial, after being arrested this week on narcotics smuggling charges. This drug ring was allegedly lead by Broomall resident Matthew James Byrne. Police said that Byrne would fly out to Los Angeles to allegedly purchase Cocaine. He did this several times a month, with each trip lasting a few days.
He would then have the drugs packaged into Bluetooth speakers or homemade wooden boxes. Police said he chose California because of it’s close proximity to Mexico. That meant lower prices for him. He is accused of shipping $5.000,000.00 in drugs in the past six months, authorities said.
Bucks County DA. Drugs in speakers.
Arrested were Matthew Byrne and his brother Joseph Byrne, 47, along with Khalik Kemp, 34, of Philadelphia, and Christian Garwood, 55 of Flourtown, Montgomery County, were arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Terrence Hughes. They were all committed to Bucks County Correctional Facility, Matthew Byrne on $5 million bail, Joseph Byrne and Kemp on $3 million bail, and Garwood on $1 million bail. Two other men in California – Ralph Brooks, 42 of Los Angeles, and Chaz Harness-Walker, 40 of Inglewood – are also charged. They are not yet in custody.
The packages containing drugs were tracked by police and most were delivered to his brothers house on Gable Hill Rad, in Bristol Township, police said. During the investigation, three of the shipments were intercepted by authorities at the United Parcel Service’s Worldport facility in Louisville, Kentucky. Nearly $1.2 million in cocaine and methamphetamine was found stashed inside the three intercepted Bluetooth speakers.