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

Investigators said the group was linked to violent incidents in the city and operated 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 takedown of another drug trafficking organization through the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport led to the discovery of this operation operating near the UW campus and selling drugs to students.

“This is what is on the streets of Seattle every day thanks to this organization,” said HSI Special Agent in Charge Robert Hammer. Federal agents were able to monitor the suspects’ electronic communications, leading them to drug houses in the University District where the organization operated.

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

Nearly 600 officers and 15 tactical teams from across the country participated in the federal operation to dismantle the East African drug trafficking network on October 30. Federal agents seized 50 guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, Glock switches and silencers, as well as fentanyl, cocaine and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry.

Federal investigators will check the weapons seized in this operation with other open investigations to see if these weapons were used in other crimes.

“The leadership organization was shot outside of a place in the University District called ‘The House,’” Gorman said. “There was a second location in the university area that they called ‘The Office,’ and that’s where they sold pills and it was right next to the university buildings and the dorms where students live and learn .”

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

“The killings, the murders, the shootings were widespread throughout this organization and its co-conspirators,” Hammer said. “The audacity of this drug trafficking organization was on full display, both in the various media reports that have existed over time related to the violence in the city, but also on the social media accounts of the drug trafficking organization itself, where they published it. to be proud of the violence they exuded in this city, frequently showing guns, Glock switches, hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash flowing through counting machines, running through the streets of Seattle, while displaying short films of AK-47 barrels, pistols with Glock switches inside vehicles.

More than a dozen people now face charges related to the trafficking organization, including one man, Khalil Ahmed, 26, of Kent, who also faces gun charges related to a fatal shooting at a hookah lounge in August 2023 which left three people dead and six people, including Ahmed, injured. Federal investigators said Ahmed also provided weapons to members of that operation.

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Others facing federal criminal charges related to this 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
• Dominique Sanders, 34, of Everett
• Patrick Smith, 27, of Edmonds
• Matthew Robinson, 37, of Everett
• Yohannes Wondimagegnehu, 35, of Seattle