The alleged leader of a Honolulu drug trafficking organization peddled deadly fentanyl-laced concoctions of opioids, heroin and methamphetamine while armed with handguns and rifles stashed in cars and storage units with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, according to documents filed in federal court.

Gabriel Antone Eberhardt, aka “Stacks,” is scheduled for a detention hearing today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Rom A. Trader after being indicted Aug. 19 on 17 counts. Also indicted was Jason Darnell Smith, aka “Famous” or “Sweets,” who the U.S. Department of Justice described in court documents as Eberhardt’s partner in leading the drug trafficking organization, which sometimes arranged drug sales in the parking lots of shopping centers. The pair is accused of selling opioids such as oxycodone tablets and counterfeit pills containing fentanyl and oxycodone, methamphetamine and fentanyl-laced heroin, often referred to as “Afghan White.”

Others also indicted were Martez Junior, aka “Green”; Jennifer Ashcraft, aka “Jessie”; Jared Northern, aka “White Boy Jay” or “Gage”; Isaiah Marks, aka “Seh”; “Zakiyyah Mareus, aka “Kai”; and Tishanah Iwalani Kaio Barrozo.

The case illustrates what county, state and federal law enforcement officers consider one of the deadliest threats from Hawaii’s illegal drug market: fentanyl.

According of officials, multistate drug trafficking organizations are bringing in drugs and guns to take advantage of the high price of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin in Hawaii.

In California one can buy a pound of meth for between $900 and $1,000, smuggle it to Hawaii and sell it for $5,500 to $6,000, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

On June 30 and July 1, Honolulu police and agents with the DEA seized $121,131 from a storage unit on Waialae Avenue, $102,919 from a storage unit on Hila Place in Pearl City, $24,327.41 from a bag stashed in a black Mercedes-Benz and $4,857 from a Young Street residence, according to court documents. Also on June 30, investigators searched a storage unit on Kawa Street in Kaneohe, the Young Street residence and the Mercedes and uncovered a cache of weapons that included a Romram/Cugir 5.45×39 mm rifle, a Smith & Wesson 9 mm handgun, a Sig-Sauer .45-caliber pistol, two Bushmaster Firearms .223 5.56 mm-caliber rifles, an Olympic Arms .223 5.56 mm rifle, body armor, a HS Produkt .45-caliber handgun, and rounds and magazines of ammunition.

Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the DEA in Hawaii Leslie Tomaich, a 23-year veteran, in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, said agents are mostly finding fentanyl in fake oxycodone pills and occasionally mixed with heroin. Firearms are also being found at an alarming rate, but no corresponding uptick in violence has been detected so far, she said.

“We are definitely seeing a lot of guns. People coming from the mainland bring in the guns. Hopefully, it just stays for show and not anything more,” said Tomaich. “It’s mostly those fake oxy pills that we are seeing it (fentanyl) in. That’s the most prevalent. It doesn’t take a whole lot of fentanyl to kill somebody. It can be deadly.”

Drug trafficking organizations, or DTOs, trying to capture a share of Hawaii’s market recruit local individuals to promote the narcotics trafficking. Upon creating the local network, higher-­level members of the trafficking organizations will return to their state and remain a point of contact to facilitate the transport of narcotics and money, Maj. Phillip Johnson, head of the Honolulu Police Department’s narcotics-vice division, told the Star-Advertiser in a statement.

“DTOs in Hawaii are mostly transient and do not plan to reside here. DTOs generally formulate a plan to receive narcotics and send payment through various means. The DTOs then recruit local individuals to promote the narcotics trafficking,” said Johnson. “DTOs have shown that conducting business in Hawaii can be very profitable as the price of narcotics is higher than on the mainland. Disrupting these organizations is important because in addition to narcotics, many DTOs are involved in human trafficking/prostitution and possession and use of firearms. Many of their members have extensive and violent criminal histories.”

Counterfeit pharmaceutical medication has been the popular medium to transport and distribute fentanyl, which can be easily “pressed” into pills, tablets and capsules, Johnson said. Heroin and opiates are in high demand; however, because fentanyl is cheaper, the DTOs mix in fentanyl with the heroin and opiates to create more product to sell, said Johnson.

“Anything mixed with fentanyl, (30 times stronger than heroin) is deadly, and the leading cause of drug overdose deaths in the U.S.,” said Gary Yabuta, executive director of the Hawaii High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, in a statement. “It is expected that 95,000 victims will die from drug overdoses in 2021, and significant amount of these deaths are directly related to fentanyl poisoning. I consider DTOs who import and distribute fentanyl murderers. In Hawaii, we have not yet felt the devastating impact of fentanyl as experienced in the Mainland; however, we must do everything we can to nip the bud before it can roar to our Hawaiian shores.”

DEA seizures of the powder and pill from this year already have exceeded the entire haul from 2020. Mainland organizations and local traffickers are able to ship the drug into Hawaii from Las Vegas and California after it is manufactured and smuggled into the country from labs in Mexico, said authorities.

“It’s so easy to bring it in here, and a lot less risky to have it shipped in than to have it produced,” said Tomaich.

The Honolulu Police Department and DEA are continuing their investigation of Eberhardt and Smith’s organization. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig S. Nolan is prosecuting the case for the federal government.

According to court documents, from April 2020 to June, the Eberhardt/Smith DTO sold an array of illegal drugs, including opioids.

Eberhardt is accused of negotiating with an undercover HPD detective to sell 25 grams of “Ghan,” a street drug containing fentanyl, for $6,000. On another occasion he allegedly arranged the sale of a drug called Gray Death for $10,000.

Eberhardt has an extensive criminal history that the federal government is citing as a reason to hold him without bail pending trial.

He was convicted of felony assault with intent to murder and a felony firearm offense in Michigan in 2000, and was sentenced to 15 to 25 years in jail, according to court documents. Eberhardt was paroled in February 2017, and 10 days later was arrested for parole violations. He was released in February 2019, and on July 26, 2020, he was charged in Michigan with three firearm offenses.

“The government notes that its evidence of defendant’s criminal conduct reveals that defendant began distributing controlled substances in Honolulu no later than October 2019 — a mere eight months after defendant’s discharge from parole — and that defendant was engaged in the distribution of controlled substances in this District while on bail in the Michigan firearms case,” Nolan wrote in his motion to detain Eberhardt without bail.