Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995                   TAG: 9503060065
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                  LENGTH: Medium

DRUG GANG MEMBERS GUILTY OF CONSPIRACY

Anthony ``Pretty'' Moore pleaded guilty Friday in Norfolk Circuit Court to conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

On Thursday, Robert B. Gillins pleaded guilty to engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy and money laundering. Also Thursday, Paul Ebanks pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy. Ebanks and Gillins were two of the gang's three leaders, prosecutors have said.

The three men face maximum sentences of life in prison without parole when they are sentenced in June.

In December, a grand jury indicted 21 people alleged to be part of what likely was the largest interstate cocaine ring ever prosecuted in the Hampton Roads area.

According to the indictment, drug sales, violence and money laundering had occurred since 1989 in Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach and Richmond.

Police said gang members moved drugs from Miami and New York to Richmond, then to the Peninsula, where they virtually controlled the drug market. The gang also was linked to four murders since 1990 in Norfolk, Newport News, Philadelphia and Lorain, Ohio.

Profits were laundered through a pest-control business in Queens, N.Y., owned by one of the gang leaders' sisters, prosecutors said.

The business began in the spring or early summer of 1989 when Gillins, Ebanks and another man traveled to the Peninsula from Queens to establish a distribution network, records show. By June, sales had begun from a Days Inn near the Hampton Coliseum.

By January 1994, the gang was selling 5 to 15 kilograms of cocaine a week. A kilogram of crack cocaine sells for at least $45,000 on the street, according to police estimates.