This week we’re teaming up with both the U.S. Marshals and Homeland Security to take on the worst fugitive we’ve featured on Detroit’s Most Wanted.
He’s accused of being the ringleader behind the horrific crimes at the Victory Inn Motel – sex trafficking, drugs, guns and overdose deaths.
As police reveal the heinous details of what they found happening inside the Victory Inn, they’ve narrowed in on one man, a convicted killer the U.S. Marshals say is capable of the unimaginable.
“It was the worst scene you could imagine, just girls high as you can imagine, passed out on the ground, shivering, freezing cold, incoherent, couldn’t make a statement even when we first encountered them,” Special Agent Jeremy Forys of Homeland Security said.
It was a horrendous and sophisticated sex trafficking right here in Detroit.
“Reports of severe beatings, overdoses involved, the sheer amount of human trafficking that we discovered was going on- it lit a fire under me personally that we were going to take this on,” Forys said.
Months of investigation led to the raid the morning of January 12 when nearly 200 local and federal law enforcement officials raided the Victory Inn Motel.
“They were cooking crack cocaine right on site, there were numerous overdoses, some resulting in fatalities involved on the premises and off the premises,” Forys said.
The raid resulted in several arrests with more to come but none ranking higher than the man police believe was behind the horrifying activity: 48-year-old Darrick Bell.
“He’s a pathetic pimp, the stuff he’s doing to these young girls, you know they’re somebody’s daughter,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Aaron Garcia said.
Convicted of murder in 1996, after prison the career criminal went right back to a life of crime.
“They call him ‘ghost’ for a reason- the guy is rarely seen, he keeps a low profile,” Garcia said.
Bell goes by ‘Ghost’ or ‘Tone’ and is well known in southwest Detroit.
“We have information that this guy is going to be really transient, he’s flip flopping from house to house from hotel to hotel still probably doing the same stuff,” Garcia said.
Now, the U.S. Marshals and Homeland Security are teaming up to take on the man they call the worst of the worst. Darrick Bell is 5’9” 195 pounds and should be considered armed and dangerous.
“I’ve never seen anything like we saw at Victory Inn,” Forys said. “The level of sophistication and enterprise used, there was a lot of work and effort put into it.”
Police stress you should not approach Bell if you see him, but to call 9-1-1 or of course the U.S. Marshals anytime at (313) 234-5656.
Remember there is a cash reward and you can remain anonymous.
