Agents learned the rent for the Skokie home was being paid for via money orders. The money orders arrived in an envelope with the return address of a 1,900-square-foot ranch-style home near Masch Avenue and Eight Mile in Warren.
The home is owned by Akia Brown’s property management company and is the address on Brian Brown’s driver’s license, according to Warren property records and the search warrant affidavit.
The dealer also identified cars used to haul drugs money between California and Detroit. The fleet included a gray Nissan Altima, the DEA alleges.
DEA agents in California hid a GPS tracking device on the Altima in June 2014 and traced the car to Brown’s wife, Akia, according to the court file.
Within days, the tracking device showed the Altima at a home on Tracey Street on Detroit’s west side.
Brown owns the home, according to the DEA and property records.
The home is a “narcotics stash location,” otherwise empty except for heroin packaging equipment and two pit bulls in the basement, the informant told DEA agents, according to the search warrant filing.
A few weeks later, in August 2014, the Altima was back at the home in Skokie before returning to California.
“I believe that the Altima had been loaded with drugs that were transported from California to Detroit for distribution by Brian Brown and members of his (drug ring),” Popp wrote.
Deep cover
Besides the Altima, the California drug dealers loaded narcotics in a Volvo C70.
In October 2014, DEA agents tracked the Volvo from Redford Township to California and arranged a traffic stop. Inside, officers found $69,980 in a secret compartment underneath the passenger seat — and a pay stub belonging to another alleged member of Brown’s drug ring.
Investigators tracked the alleged drug trafficker to a hotel next to Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus days later.
FBI task force members set up surveillance nearby and watched the man for seven days.
On Nov. 5, investigators watched the alleged drug trafficker and a second man leave the hotel in a silver Cadillac DTS. The Cadillac was registered to Brown’s wife, Akia, according to the DEA.
Agents shadowed the Cadillac along southbound I-75 before arranging a traffic stop. Inside the Cadillac, Michigan State Police troopers found $143,940 hidden in a secret compartment.
Three weeks later, investigators tracked the alleged drug dealer to the Los Angeles area. When agents found the man, he had the same Nissan Altima linked three months earlier to Brown’s wife Akia.
Police towed the car and opened the trunk. Inside, investigators found 6 kilograms of heroin.
The next month, in December 2014, the investigation’s focus returned to Michigan.
DEA agents learned a large drug ring needed money picked up from a Detroit-based drug dealer. A DEA informant called the alleged drug dealer’s cellphone and arranged to pick up the cash at a Bob Evans restaurant near Dequindre and 10 Mile in Warren.
Agents listening to the phone call determined the voice belonged to Brian Brown after comparing the voice to videos Brown posted on social media, according to the DEA.
“Brian Brown ... agreed to deliver the money to the Bob Evans restaurant in the Detroit area,” the DEA agent wrote in the search warrant filing.
The DEA informant traveled to the Bob Evans restaurant at the prearranged time and met with a man who handed over a green bag filled with $100,060.
A probation officer concluded Brown violated conditions of his release from federal prison, but Brown remained a free man.
Probe heads south
A month later, in January 2015, the investigation led to Birmingham, Alabama, where agents raided a home and arrested Eric Young, who banking records showed had wired money to Brian Brown.
During the raid, agents found heroin and fentanyl, a synthetic substance that makes smaller doses of heroin more potent.
Young told agents Brian Brown was his heroin supplier, according to the search warrant affidavit. Since 2013, Young consistently received 2 kilograms of heroin from Brown every month and paid $75,000 per kilogram.
“... Brown would send the heroin to Alabama in vehicles equipped with a concealed or secret compartment ...,” wrote Popp, the DEA agent.
Brown also supplied heroin to a convicted felon in Baltimore, a confidential source told DEA agents.
A family affair
The alleged drug conspiracy also involves Brown’s “main girlfriend” in Detroit, according to a DEA informant.
The woman helps hide cash from drug deals, according to the court filing.
On Nov. 30, 2015, the DEA was ready to raid Brown’s alleged drug empire, including at least seven locations across Metro Detroit.
The list of properties included Brown’s home in Warren, the house on Tracey, a Detroit riverfront loft and a home on West Parkway in Detroit used by Brown.
During a Dec. 2 raid at the West Parkway home, agents found his girlfriend and an infant. They also found a loaded and stolen .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun on a nightstand in the master bedroom, a commercial money counter and drug packaging materials, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.
The gun belonged to Brown, his girlfriend told agents, court records show.
Brown was indicted in March 2016 on a gun charge, released on bond and placed on house arrest with a GPS tether.
Two months later, while free on bond, Brown allegedly beat one of his rappers, Charli Baltimore, whose real name is Tiffany Lane-Jarmon.
Rapper Charli Baltimore, one of Brian Brown’s girlfriends, accused the alleged drug kingpin of assaulting her while he was free on bond in May 2016. “I was brutally beaten by Brown when I walked in on him with another woman,” Baltimore wrote in a court filing. “He choked me, blacked my eye, brused my arm...” (Photo: Twitter)
“I was brutally beaten by Brown when I walked in on him with another woman,” Lane-Jarmon, 43, wrote in an court affidavit. “He choked me, blacked (sic) my eye, bruised my arm while I was still in a cast.”
Despite the federal drug investigation, the gun charge, and accusations by Charli Baltimore, Brown remains free on bond.
In November, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds gave Brown additional freedom. She removed the GPS tether, freeing him to travel for business purposes.
While Brown is free on bond, his wife says on social media that she is filming a Lifetime reality show.
The alleged reality show — Lifetime officials did not respond to a message seeking comment — has a name.
