The mastermind behind an Atlanta-based drug ring that operated a covert cocaine distribution and money laundering network for nearly a decade was sentenced to federal prison this week.
U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones sentenced Tory Lenard Troup to eight years in prison followed by 15 years of parole during a hearing Monday. The judge also ordered authorities to seize two of Troup’s homes with a combined value of $840,124.
The 52-year-old Atlanta man pleaded guilty in June 2021 to conspiracy charges of money laundering and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office Northern District of Georgia announced Troup’s sentence in a news release Thursday. According to federal prosecutors, he orchestrated a drug syndicate that was based in Fulton County and served as a major supplier of cocaine throughout metro Atlanta and South Carolina.
“This sentencing deals a major blow to Troup’s drug trafficking organization, and is a major step in keeping drugs off the streets of metro Atlanta and elsewhere,” said Robert Murphy, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta Field Division. “This criminal organization has reached its final chapter, as these defendants will now spend well-deserved time in prison.”
U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said the operation dated back to at least 2008. Troup was released from prison in 2007 after serving time for his second federal drug trafficking conviction. Shortly after he got out, he assembled a crew and recruited four other traffickers from Florida and metro Atlanta, who became top-ranking members of the drug outfit.
Buchanan said the group got their supply from Colombia, the Bahamas and Texas and used private planes, cars and UPS shipments to transport the drugs to Atlanta. They also smuggled bales of marijuana into South Florida by boat, court records showed.
The crew used runners to drive their profits to Atlanta or shipped bundles of cash to town through the mail. Feds said they employed a multi-faceted money laundering scheme to avoid the attention of law enforcement. That included funneling the profits through several bank accounts in other people’s names as well as business accounts used to disguise the proceeds as legitimate revenue.
Troup and company also bought luxury cars, homes, jewelry and even cosmetic surgery, often in other people’s names, as a means to launder their profits.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office indicted Troup and six other members of the drug ring in 2018. Two of the defendants obtained fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loans from the federal government’s COVID-19 economic relief efforts while out on bond awaiting trial.
All of them pleaded guilty to their respective charges, Buchanan indicated in this week’s release. Troup was the last to receive his sentence.
In total, federal authorities seized 16 properties from the group. Judges ordered five of the convicted defendants to forfeit just shy of $3.9 million worth of property, jewelry and other assets combined. Meanwhile, the two defendants convicted of fraud were ordered to repay the U.S. Small Business Administration over $56,000 in restitution for the PPP loans.
“For many years the group managed to operate their scheme without law enforcement intervention due to their extensive concealment efforts, tight code of loyalty, and threats to others,” federal authorities said in Thursday’s news release. “But ultimately a collaboration of multiple federal agencies conducting a comprehensive financial investigation, in combination with evidence from local agencies, a wiretap, drug and money seizures, information from cooperating sources who feared violent retribution, and undercover recordings, produced a series of federal charges that dismantled the organization.”
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