Fort Worth arrests lead to 28,000 fentanyl pills, more than $100,000 in car, home
An estimated 28,000 fentanyl pills and more than $100,000 were seized from a car and a home in Fort Worth late Thursday and early Friday by local and federal authorities.
Police arrested two Fort Worth men on Thursday night and confiscated 10 weapons, including a semiautomatic rifle. The men, Melvin Ladrelle Kellough Jr. and Atomic Dianthony Greene, face federal charges of conspiracy to possess fentanyl with intent to distribute, according to federal court documents.
Neighbors in the town-home community on Terra Brook Street said they saw a swarm of law enforcement at the home on Thursday night, but had no idea there was any drug activity going on there. Theirs is typically a quiet neighborhood, with children out riding bikes and scooters and drawing on sidewalks with chalk in the afternoon and evening, not one where they worry about drug deals or violence.
Authorities wrote in a criminal complaint that a defendant told Fort Worth police on Thursday that they had been obtaining 15,000 to 30,000 fentanyl pills for several months. Detectives believed the fentanyl pill operation had been running since August.
The defendant provided a telephone number, through which authorities tracked Kellough, with an address in Fort Worth. Police then asked the defendant to call Kellough and ask to obtain fentanyl pills, according to the complaint written by an agent with Homeland Security Investigations.
Kellough told the defendant he would give his girlfriend 25,000 pills and she would deliver it to a home on Park City Trail in Fort Worth, according to the complaint.
At 10:15 p.m. Thursday, Kellough’s girlfriend, who was under surveillance, was seen leaving a home on Terra Brook Street in north Fort Worth. She drove to an Arlington apartment where she met Kellough, according to the criminal complaint.
Minutes later, Kellough called the defendant and said he was just 12 minutes away from the house on Park City Trail. Kellough arrived at the scene, got out of his car and carried a shoe box., according to the complaint.
Fort Worth SWAT members detained Kellough near a residence on Park City Trail in south Fort Worth and detained Greene, who was in a car. Kellough had a loaded .40-caliber handgun, and authorities found 25,000 fentanyl pills in a shoe box that Kellough was carrying, according to a criminal complaint.
SWAT members found a loaded semiautomatic rife and a 9 mm handgun on the floorboard near where Greene had been sitting. Plastic bags with fentanyl pills also were found on Greene, according to the complaint.
Initially, Kellough told authorities that Greene was just his friend, but he later said Greene was his protection, according to the complaint.
Armed with a warrant, authorities searched a home on Terra Brook Street early Friday and found 3,000 fentanyl pills, 29 pounds of marijuana, $100,871 in cash and seven firearms, according to the complaint.
Nina Arriola told the Star-Telegram when she and her husband got home on Thursday night, they initially thought police were there to break up a fight. When Arriola saw how many police vehicles there were, including unmarked cars, she said she knew something more was going on.
But she didn’t know what until Friday afternoon.
Arriola said she was glad to know that so many pills were taken off the streets, though. Her cousin died of a fentanyl overdose a year ago, not far from the neighborhood in which she lives now. For Arriola, an advocate of the 1 Pill Kills campaign to prevent fentanyl abuse, anything that keeps the drug away from people is a good thing.
Arriola still feels safe in her community, she said, but feels that she and her neighbors will be a little more watchful of what happens around them in an effort to keep their children safe.
This story was originally published October 7, 2022 at 3:58 PM.
