Seven suspects have been indicted for what authorities call a violent crime spree that spanned seven states from Maine to Virginia and targeted more than 50 victims.
The Department of Justice said the alleged ringleader was from Maine and was using a Gardiner apartment as a base.
Officials said 29-year-old Amanda Marie Correa allegedly led the Fentanyl Robbery Gang, a group with at least seven members that would lure men to meetings through a dating site and then drug them with Fentanyl and rob them.
Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney Gerard Karam said at a press conference last week that four victims from Pennsylvania and New Hampshire died of overdoses.
"If a victim refused to ingest the drugs or members didn't think the drugs were working fast enough so that a victim would pass out, members of the gang would introduce fentanyl forcibly into the victims bodies," Karam said.
Gardiner Police Chief Todd Pilsbury said he never saw Correa, who has identified herself as being on the lease for the Gardiner apartment with alleged fellow gang member Dylan Wilson Small. He also said police have had run-ins with Small, and alleged gang members Samuel Jordan and Christine Deeann DiCarlo, all from Maine.
"We had been some complaints from neighbors about disturbances and officers had to go up there. That's how it got on our radar. So we were kind of watching it, thinking there were activities going on there that shouldn't be," Pilsbury said.
Pilsbury said the Department of Justice contacted him about the case in April and federal agents executed a search warrant on the Gardiner apartment April 26.
A federal grand jury has indicted Correa, Small, DiCarlo, Jordan, Robert Andrew Barnes, Shaqare Jaymont Blackwell, and Shakur Serafin Brownstein on federal charges, including conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance resulting in death and serious bodily injury, and two counts of distributing fentanyl resulting in death and serious bodily injury.
The investigation is ongoing and more charges are expected.