The owner of a trucking company was arrested on Tuesday, Sept. 9, by the FBI, IRS agents and Suffolk County Police after more than 5 kg of fentanyl, 750 grams of cocaine, 15 pounds of marijuana and two assault rifles were seized in a series of raids that included two Farmingdale storage facilities, according to a detention memo filed by federal prosecutors.
Kingsley McDonald, a Shirley resident, was charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute 400 or more grams of fentanyl, and with distributing and possessing with the intent to distribute 40 or more grams of fentanyl, the memo stated.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was ordered to be held without bail.
The documents state McDonald could face 262 to 327 months in prison.
Since September 2023, McDonald had allegedly worked with others to conspire to distribute more than 400 grams of fentanyl and had personally sold more than 570 grams of controlled substances, according to the memo.
The memo stated that each of McDonald’s sales involved more than 40 grams of fentanyl. Two milligrams of fentanyl is sufficient to cause a deadly overdose, according to the document.
The memo also stated that he had allegedly sold $20,000 worth of fentanyl to law enforcement.
Seized evidence from one of the Farmingdale storage facilities included approximately five kg of fentanyl, plastic bags containing approximately one kg of additional controlled substances, two assault rifles, a revolver, firearm ammunition, a kilogram press and approximately 15 pounds of marijuana, the memo stated.
Execution of the court’s other search warrants revealed approximately 1,120 grams of combined fentanyl and heroin and approximately 350 grams of cocaine at McDonald’s West Babylon home, approximately 400 grams of cocaine and approximately 100 grams of fentanyl at a second Farmingdale storage facility and a firearm from his Shirley residence, the memo stated.
McDonald could face additional charges, as phone records indicated he had allegedly communicated with a Suffolk resident who died in March 2024 of a drug overdose caused in part by fentanyl, according to the memo.
It also stated that McDonald has a criminal record that includes several arrests over the past two decades.
McDonald engaged in over $500,000 in chip transactions at casinos in Suffolk, Queens and Connecticut over the past two years, withdrawing over $400,000 in cash, according to the documents. They stated that the transactions are “consistent with his laundering.”
The detention memo listed McDonald as a “flight risk” due to the amount of cash he had. McDonald is from Jamaica and is not a U.S. citizen, and had obtained a deferral of removal to Jamaica during immigration proceedings, the memo states.
“Based upon his drug trafficking conduct that is described herein and in the Indictment, he is subject to forfeiting that deferral and being removed from the United States,” the memo stated.
McDonald refused to cooperate with law enforcement by opening phones with his fingerprints or face, but that forensic analysts are confident that they will be able to get roughly 97% of the data contained on the phones, according to the memo.
His refusal to cooperate “bespeaks the likely presence of further incriminating evidence on those phones,” the memo states.
