"To move in a gang, in this case the Bloods, one has to put in work," Essex County Investigator Thomas Fennelly said.
Investigators say 25-year-old Iyesha Harrison of East Orange and 30-year-old Tyesha Stephens put in quite a bit of work for the Bloods, selling a laundry list of drugs.
They included PCP, heroin, cocaine, marijuana. Investigators said she moved about 50 thousand dollars worth of the drugs each week, selling wholesale to dealers out of a Newark high rise, overseeing individual street deals along South Orange Avenue.
Police say it was female controlled turf that touched four neighboring towns like a growing cancer.
"It is very unusual to see women at this high of a rank and level in the gang networks to actually see them running the networks," Fennelly said.
"Operation Bloodette" resulted in the arrests of 43 people, 31 of them previous violent offenders. Thirteen are juveniles, and all are said to be part of Lyesha and Tyesha's units of the Bloods.
"We seized 4 guns 138 ammunitions, and 21 thousand dollars as part of this investigation," Essex County prosecutor Paula Dow said.
Police say it's one operation cleared off the busy South Orange Avenue corridor that won't be back.
"We're committed to not giving that territory back."**) "We're going to continue to come back, and we're going to do this all over again until the gangs release the choke hold on our communities," said Jose Cordero, New Jersey Violent Crime Strategist.
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