Sixteen Charged in Major Fond du Lac Cocaine Bust

Sixteen people are now facing drug-related charges following a major cocaine bust in the Fond du Lac area. Law enforcement officials say over 127 pounds of cocaine were distributed – worth about $9.6 million on the street – during what they call a significant drug trafficking investigation. It’s estimated that is also approximately 96,539 doses of cocaine. 

Attorney General Brad Schimel tells us “that money has been spent by people using drugs here and has already been shipped out of our country to the drug cartels. It’s gone. There are pieces of it that will get seized here as law enforcement makes the arrests and recovers money that hasn’t been shipped out yet. But that money gets packaged up and shipped out of the country.”

Schimel was also impressed by the size and magnitude of the operation, saying “that’s quite an organization to get sixteen people working together to
do this. There are more that are believed to be involved and there are likely
to be more charges that come out of this and certainly there will be others –
as you work the supply chain all the way back to the origin outside the US –
there are an awful lot of people working together to profit off our
communities.”

Several firearms were also confiscated during the investigation. The announcement was made Thursday morning by Attorney General Brad Schimel, Chief of Police Bill Lamb, and District Attorney Eric Toney – along with Assistant Special Agent Joel Lee of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. 

Lee points out that it was a job well-done, but there is still work to do. He says “this game is not over. We’re at halftime. So anyone that is targeting
this community, we just tell you that the game is not over. We would also like
to encourage members of the community to call and give us information. If you
have information – if you see something, please say something.”

Kayley M. Kropp, Nichole Pauly, Lashonda D. Cruckson, Nicole T. Cassola, Lateef Strong, Michael Liebelt, Tony L. Potratz, Duane R. Biesterveld, Jospeh S. Davis, Danny M. Andrews Jr., Veronica B. Fannan, Dennis R. Armstrong, John L. Sobrilsky, Ulysses J. Brown, Jacob Fellers and another individual have been charged in connection to the case. Charges in the case include conspiracy to deliver more than 40 grams of cocaine. The time spans from July 2017 to April of this year.

Two people, Dennis Armstrong of Fond du Lac and Kayley Kropp of North Fond du Lac are still wanted in connection to the case. 

Attorney General Schimel adds that this is not necessarily an issue that law enforcement can arrest their way out of. He argues that “if we could get this drug epidemic under control and reduce this
demand, so much more good could be happening. Instead of sending this money
back to drug cartels south of the border, it could be going to workers in the US
that are building consumer products and other things.”

District Attorney Eric
Toney says the conspiracy stretches down to Milwaukee
and Chicago as
well.