Police bust open-air drug market in Crystal Lake

An open-air drug market in Crystal Lake was broken up Thursday morning and eight people were arrested, officials said.

The North Central Narcotics Task Force working with several local police departments made the drug arrests at the Crystal Lake Apartments on the 160 block of Woodstock Avenue.

"People would drive up to the dealers standing in the parking lot, make their drug transactions and leave. Many people out of the area were going there to buy narcotics," said Master Sgt. Tim Sebastian of the North Central Narcotics Task Force.

He said some of the buyers came from Algonquin, Carpentersville and the Dundees.

After receiving complaints beginning about three months ago that drugs were being sold at the apartment complex, undercover agents purchased drugs at the open-air market.

Drug agents and police began working at 2 a.m. Thursday to round up the dealers and recover any drugs or money from their sale, authorities said.

Police confiscated powder cocaine with a street value of $35,000, crack cocaine with a value of $2,000 and marijuana with a value of $1,000.

Also confiscated was $6,480 in cash and several counterfeit Social Security and alien registration identification cards that were of "poor quality," police said.

Those who were charged with possession of a controlled substance all live the apartment complex: Ignacio Alvarez, 27, Juana Catarino, 37, Javier Gamboa, 41, Jaevon Westbrook, 25, David Jiminez, 32, and Marcus Ferguson, 36.

Heather Crimaldi, 34, and Mateo Alcavter, 36, were charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, police said.

All are scheduled to appear Friday at bond hearings in Woodstock, police said.

Now that the arrests have been made, police said they will look into who made the fraudulent identification cards and who was purchasing the drugs.