ALTOONA – Attorney General Tom Corbett and Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio today announced that agents from the Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics Investigation, along with local law enforcement, have arrested 26 of 48 suspected drug dealers charged in Blair County. The remaining suspects are actively being sought by authorities.
Corbett said the arrests are the result of a six-month long investigation that focused on street and mid-level drug dealers operating in northern Blair County, centered in Altoona and Tyrone. The drugs involved include crack cocaine, heroin, morphine, and marijuana.
“Today’s arrests are another example of how cooperative law enforcement is targeting drug dealers and drug related crime throughout the region,” Corbett said. “Working together, we can not only arrest local drug dealers, but also identify the people and networks who are bringing drugs into Blair County.”
Corbett said that at least 35 of the suspected drug dealers are from Altoona. Other local suspects are from Tyrone, Hollidaysburg, Roaring Spring, and Port Matilda. Additionally, Corbett said the investigation resulted in criminal charges against a Pittsburgh man suspected of providing a supply link between Altoona and Pittsburgh.
Corbett said the drug arrests today are part of an ongoing effort to target local, street-level drug dealers along with the mid-and upper-level drug suppliers who are bringing heroin and crack cocaine into the Blair County area.
The Blair County Drug Task Force, which receives its funding from the Attorney General’s Office, was established to conduct street-level drug investigations. Information gathered from these investigations, including where the drug dealers obtain their drugs, is used to target mid-to upper-level drug dealers by BNI agents and Attorney General drug prosecutors.
Since 2005, Corbett said there have been 500 arrests (not including today’s arrests) and over $810,000 worth of drugs have been seized by the Blair County Drug Task Force.
Corbett thanked the businesses and community leaders involved with “Operation Our Town,” a nonprofit corporation formed by local business leaders to take back local neighborhoods and rid them of drugs and drug related crime.
“The only way that we can remove drugs and drug related violence from our city streets is for the community to come together and take a unified stand against this type of crime,” Corbett said. “Operation Our Town is a positive example of how business and community leaders can make a difference in our neighborhoods by increasing law enforcement protection, educating the citizenry about drugs and drug-related violence, and encouraging treatment for substance abusers.
“Drug abuse is a community-wide problem that requires community-wide solutions like ‘Operation Our Town.'”
Information provided to the Blair County “Push Out the Pushers Hotline” (814-693-3020) was also used to help identify suspected drug dealers during this investigation.
Corbett said the defendants are scheduled to be preliminarily arraigned today before Magisterial District Judges Todd Kelly and Joseph Moran in Blair County Central Court. The defendants will be prosecuted by Blair County District Attorney Consiglio’s office.
Corbett thanked the agents and officers from the Bureau of Narcotics Investigation, Blair County Drug Task Force, Blair County Sheriff’s Department, Blair County District Attorney’s office, Somerset County Sheriff’s Department, as well as the Huntington, Centre, and Clearfield County Drug Task Forces.