Suspected gang leader, Sheldon ISD teacher among 20 indicted in Houston drug bust

About 300 federal and local law enforcement officers fanned out early Wednesday morning across the Houston area, arresting more than a dozen suspected drug traffickers accused of peddling kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine throughout the region.

The arrests, part of a broader effort by the Department of Justice to combat violent crime in the nation’s fourth-largest city, were announced Thursday by Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas.

Prosecutors and investigators said the highest-profile defendant, 35-year-old Alfred Jacoby Green, is a suspected leader of the “Rich Kingz” gang and the organizer of the busted trafficking ring. Hamdani said the Rich Kingz operate out of southwest Houston, trafficking cocaine and methamphetamine throughout Houston, as well as other states stretching as far north as Ohio and Virginia to the east.

Houston FBI Special Agent in Charge Doug Williams said he hopes the arrests help investigators “connect the dots on several cases, including unsolved murders.”

“Drug trafficking in Houston and throughout the United States is a rampant problem that continues to take lives,” Hamdani said. “It takes lives through violence that goes hand in hand with drug trafficking. It takes lives in the deaths of people who overdose using those drugs. It takes lives in the communities that are left ravaged and ruined in their wake.”

Prosecutors said the other defendants were not gang members, though they conspired with Green to traffic drugs. The defendants include 34-year-old Jessica Ferguson, a Sheldon ISD third-grade teacher accused of participating in the conspiracy while at work.

“You could hear the children in the background” while Ferguson talked on the phone, Hamdani said.

In a statement, Sheldon officials confirmed the arrest of Ferguson, adding it did not take place in front of students, and said she has been placed on administrative leave. They declined to comment further, citing privacy laws.

Altogether, 20 people were indicted by a federal grand jury earlier this month in connection with the investigation. Most face charges related to conspiracy to distribute drugs or possession with the intent to distribute. The drug charges carry mandatory minimums of five to 20 years in prison, depending on the amount of drugs and any prior convictions.

Ten people were indicted on charges of illegally possessing a firearm or illegally possessing a firearm that had been converted into a machine gun. Investigators seized 10 firearms as part of the bust.

Several of the Houston area’s top law enforcement officials — including newly appointed Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and Fort Bend County Sheriff Eric Fagan — joined Hamdani and Williams to announce the arrests.

Authorities said they have arrested more than 65 “violent offenders,” confiscated more than 130 firearms and seized about $1.3 million since federal officials announced two years ago that combating violent crime in Houston would be a priority. The FBI and Hamdani announced a similar takedown in September 2023 to the one announced Thursday, with 39 people arrested and charged with similar crimes in that case.

“These numbers are a fraction of what the FBI and our partners are bringing to the day-to-day fight to violent crime in our city,” said Williams, who was named special agent in charge of the Houston bureau in January.