Chicago Man Out On Bail Over Cocaine Possession Allegedly Picks Up Drug Shipment From The Post Office

A Chicago man with a long list of drug arrests was arrested Thursday for allegedly accepting an overseas package from the Netherlands containing hundreds of refined Ecstasy pills — known also as “Molly pills.” Molly pills are a “purer form” of Ecstasy, and popular with young people in party circuits looking for a touchy-feely type of “hallucinogenic high.”

As the Chicago Tribune reports, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials intercepted the package and sent an undercover agent to deliver it to a local post office box at 1 p.m. Thursday.

The suspect, Darell Crider, showed up an hour later in the company of two other people to retrieve the package, which was under surveillance by local officers. He was followed back to his home in the West Humboldt neighborhood and shadowed taking the packages into his home on West Hirsch Street, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Kelly Olivier said.

When officers confirmed that the package was opened, it validated their search warrant and they moved in. Crider, 28, fled from the apartment using the backdoor, but he was apprehended after a brief foot chase.

According to police authorities, Chicago has been among the top three cities with the most murders since 1985. In 2014, there were 416 murders. In 2015, there were 468 murders which showed a jump of 12.5% from the previous year. According to the Chicago Police Department there were also 2,900 shootings in 2015, an increase of 13% from the previous year.

Investigations point out most of these shootings and killings are carried out by different factions of the Gangster Disciples. The early beginnings of the Gangster Disciples are linked to Larry Hoover. Hoover built the Gangster Disciples into a formidable criminal organization in the 70s and continued to run it even when in state prison for murder.

Today in Policing: History of Chicago Gangs: Gangster Disciples and emergence of Growth & Development #CRJ103 pic.twitter.com/bnYlzYpRhG

— Michelle Furlow (@michelleEPCC) May 7, 2015

During this time, there was a strict code for members to shun any form of violence. Former Assistant U.S. attorney, Ron Safer, who prosecuted Hoover, said it was “an army of lawyers and accountants. They had their music promotion company, political action committee and clothing line.”

But when Hoover and other major gang leaders were brought down in a federal extortion, drug-trafficking, and criminal enterprise case in 1997, the organization crashed. Younger gang members who were not privy to the organized leadership structure set up by those before them emerged and began to fight over influence and territory.

Officers recovered more drugs from Crider’s first-floor apartment. Apart from the 220 pills in the mailed package, there were two bags of Xanax bars weighing 260 grams, a small bag of crack cocaine, and 1,109 Molly pills. According to Olivier, the cache of drugs had an estimated street value of $75,515.

Law enforcement officers also recovered materials used to mix, weigh, and package the drugs, along with $6,465 in cash. The money was turned over to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Crider was taken to the Cook County Sheriff’s Maybrook Square lockup and charged on multiple counts of manufacturing Ecstasy pills and trafficking in illegal substances.

On Saturday, the prosecution filed a petition against his $150,000 bail bond because he had already violated a previous one for unrelated drug offences towards manufacturing and delivering cocaine. Crider is scheduled to appear soon in court.

Darrell Crider is not the first alleged drug dealer to try — and fail — to move illegal product through legal distribution means. As WTOP (Oswego) reports, two men ran a drug courier service, moving marijuana from Los Angeles across the country using USPS. USPS alerted detectives over a dodgy package delivered to an address in Arlington, Virginia. Subsequent investigations uncovered a large-scale drug distribution network.

[Image via Shutterstock/Audrey_Popov]