Feds: Boston Gang Bust Linked to SouthCoast Crime

Twenty members and associates of NOB, a Boston-based street gang, have been charged in federal court, and eleven others already in custody were hit with new federal charges, United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling announced Tuesday.

Lelling said the investigation involved cooperation between federal, state, and local law enforcement, including the New Bedford Police Department.

“Today’s arrests should serve as a warning that we will not tolerate gang-related violence, and those who cause it,” Boston Police Commissioner William Gross remarked. “Members of this criminal enterprise wrongly believed they were above the law, but they clearly underestimated us.”

NOB is an acronym for Norton, Olney and Barry streets in Dorchester. Members and associates of NOB allegedly committed serious crimes in Boston and other communities including Randolph, New Bedford, Stoughton, Brockton, East Bridgewater, and Taunton, as well as on Cape Cod and in the states of Rhode Island, Maine and Connecticut.

The charging documents name Wilson Goncalves-Mendes, known as "Dub," a man linked to shootings and gun crimes in New Bedford over a four-year span. The documents also describe other NOB-linked crimes in the area, including information that a pistol seized in Randolph was matched through ballistic evidence to a shooting on the UMass Dartmouth campus in late 2016.

In another of several instances, on July 20, 2019, police conducted a vehicle stop of two defendants and recovered fentanyl pills and a loaded 9mm pistol with an obliterated serial number. Ballistics analysis linked the pistol to a prior shooting in New Bedford, Lelling said.

Since 2016, NOB members and associates allegedly committed murders and shootings, many targeting rival gang members. During the same period, gang members allegedly stole motor vehicles, and one of the thefts resulted in the kidnapping of a five-year-old girl from Boston, who was later abandoned in Randolph, Lelling said.

The NOB gang allegedly trafficked drugs throughout Massachusetts, including marijuana, fentanyl, cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin and prescription pills. The group allegedly distributed not only fentanyl in powder form, but fentanyl pills with the appearance of oxycodone pills.

NOB members and associates were also involved in sex trafficking, including transporting women across state lines for the purposes of engaging in prostitution, documents allege.

The federal RICO and conspiracy charges come with hefty fines and prison sentences.

Lelling and Gross joined a host of state, federal, and county law enforcement officials in making the announcement. They included New Bedford Police Chief Joseph C. Cordeiro; Quincy Police Chief Paul Keenan; Randolph Police Chief William Pace; Brockton Police Chief Emanuel C. Gomes; and Stoughton Police Chief Donna M. McNamara.

Suffolk DA Rachael Rollins; Suffolk County Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins; Plymouth DA Timothy J. Cruz; Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald Jr.; Bristol County DA Thomas M. Quinn III; and Norfolk County Sheriff Jerome P. McDermott also joined in the announcement.