Notorious Washington, D.C. drug trafficker Rayful Edmond III is a free man. It isn’t clear when he left prison.
Edmond, 59, is seen in a cell phone video uploaded to X, formerly Twitter. He says “I’m back better than ever.”
Rayful home! pic.twitter.com/0RHbG1HKYZ
— Killa Kam (@urbansocialight) July 31, 2024
Edmond is credited with introducing crack cocaine to the D.C. area during the crack epidemic of the 1980s. The resulting crime wave helped D.C. earn the reputation as the “murder capital of the United States.”
Federal prosecutors alleged that Edmond trafficked hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to the Washington, D.C. area in the 1980s.
During his trial, Edmond was flown on a helicopter from prison to the courthouse every day.
He pled guilty to drug charges in 1989 and was sentenced to life without parole in a federal prison.
Edmond continued to run his drug empire from a Pennsylvania federal prison with the help of fellow inmates Dixon Trujillo-Blanco and his brother Osvaldo “Chicky” Blanco. The Blanco brothers were the sons of Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco.
After Chicky was released from prison and deported to Colombia, he was gunned down in 1992.
At the time, Chicky was Edmond’s main drug supplier in Colombia. His murder inspired Edmond to cooperate with federal authorities.
With Edmond’s help, the feds arrested 8 drug dealers in the D.C. area and recovered $190,000 in cash.
Edmond also gave the feds information on 2 homicides, and he testified at one of the murder trials.
In 2021 a judge reduced Edmond’s sentence from life without parole to 20 years with lifetime parole. He received credit for the 18 years he’d already served.
