Detroit Drug Chief ‘Weezy’ Taylor Is A Wanted Man, Anchored Powell Bros. Gang Resurgence Past Two Years

Entering 2017, Detroit’s Public Enemy No. 1 is reputed Motor City drug lord Dwayne (Weezy) Taylor. The 40-year old shot caller is currently at large from the law and allegedly running his cocaine, heroin and marijuana empire underground “bunker style.”

A former top lieutenant of the area’s notorious Powell Brothers drug gang, the biggest wholesale narcotics organization in the region from the mid-2000s until the spring of 2014 when a series of federal convictions temporarily decimated the multi-million dollar crime syndicate’s core and forced the gang to regroup, Weezy Taylor, according to the DEA and U.S. Marshal’s Office, was the man tapped with heading the rebuild effort. Kingpins Carlos (Big 50) Powell, 42, and his younger brother Eric (Little 50) Powell, 38, are serving life prison sentences. At the time of their arrests, the DEA and IRS confiscated 22 million bucks from the gang, some of it discovered in safes stashed across Metro Detroit and other parts of the country and the rest in Powell or Powell-connected bank accounts.

Prior to ascending to the boss’ chair upon the Powell brothers jailing more than two years ago, Taylor was the Powells’ distribution chief, tasked with overseeing the trucks full of drugs shipping the gang’s product up to Michigan from Mexico, using Phoenix as a waystation. He was indicted with the Powells in 2012. The DEA believes that Carlos and Eric Powell are still “partners” with Taylor even though they are incarcerated in federal correction facilities in Pennsylvania and Virginia, respectively.

Both Powells are affiliated with the Moorish Science Temple, a sect of the Muslim religion founded in New Jersey in the early 20th Century, and bolted on the morning of their jury verdict in May 2014. The following month, Carlos Powell was apprehended in St. Louis and Eric Powell in Atlanta. The Powell Brothers Gang filled the void in the Detroit drug scene left in 2005 with the sweeping takedown of the infamous and iconic Black Mafia Family (“BMF”) in the landmark Operation Motor City Mafia case. They laundered portions of their drug money through car dealerships they owned in Michigan and Arizona and maintained friends in high places – one of their co-defendants (Ken Daniels) was a former state representative in Lansing..