Cocaine operation discovered at Sammamish Papa John’s

Five men were arrested Friday after an investigation discovered cocaine was being sold out of a Papa John’s pizza shop in Sammamish. The case has been titled “Operation Extra Olives.”

“One of our undercover detectives said he actually received his drug delivery in a pizza box with a pizza, and that was part of the way they were able to sell their drugs,” said Sgt. Cindy West with the King County Sheriff’s Office.

Sammamish and Bellevue police and King County Sheriff’s deputies issued warrants to homes in Bellevue Friday as well as at the Sammamish Papa John’s in the 700 block of 228th Avenue NE. They discovered $28,000 cash, and various drugs including cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana, Oxycodone pills, LSD and meth. A 26-year-old, 21-year-old, 19-year-old, and an 18-year-old were arrested. An 18-year-old related to the case also turned himself in later Friday.

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The investigation began in December 2016 when Sammamish police received a tip that cocaine was being sold out of the pizza shop. An employee would often come outside of the store during work hours to deal the drugs, though sometimes exchanges were done inside the business, West said.

“We sent in a couple undercover detectives at different times and were able to purchase cocaine from a couple employees,” West said. “We continued to do that off-and-on over the past few months.”

“During our investigation, there was a point in time when the supplier at the pizza joint ran out of supplies and referred us to another person, who referred us to another person, and we ended up doing search warrants today and arrested five people that were involved in different levels of narcotics sales as a result of this original tip,” she said.

West noted that management at the Sammamish Papa John’s was unaware of the drug dealing at the store. While detectives searched the pizza shop, they used swabs to detect for narcotic residue inside the business.

“The detectives doing the swabs said there was cocaine residue in different places in the business – on the cash resister, near the employee lockers, near the employee hand washing station,” West said. “We alerted the management to the residue and he was very diligent in making sure the business was clean. In fact, he requested we come back over there to make sure that he cleaned adequately.”

West said that the amount of drugs seized indicates that the five men were low-level dealers.

“Nonetheless, they are still drug dealers and we don’t want them dealing drugs out of our businesses,” she said.

Papa John’s issued a statement on Friday:

“Papa John’s has zero tolerance for this type of offensive and illegal behavior. The franchisee has confirmed that the employees involved with this situation are no longer employed and we apologize for their actions. The franchisee is working in full cooperation with local law enforcement to resolve this matter. Furthermore, food safety and sanitation is of the utmost importance to Papa John’s. The franchisee took immediate action steps, with Health Department oversight, and the location was cleared to reopen.”

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