The details of a multi-state weed ring run out of a popular Detroit donut shop emerged today after federal prosecutors indicted the shop owner and two others on drug conspiracy, money laundering and a long list of other charges. For more than two years, the Holy Moly Donut Shop on Eight Mile operated as a hub for moving hundreds of pounds of cannabis and laundering millions in proceeds from drug sales. But the donut shop didn’t act alone. A sham medical cannabis dispensary and an ATM-filling business also helped run the weed ring.
Donut Shop and Fake Medical Dispensary Busted By Federal Investigators
If the stereotype about police loving donuts is true, making the front for your multi-state weed ring a donut shop that’s right next door to a bogus cannabis dispensary that’s also involved is a bold choice. But it’s one that Holy Moly Donut Shop owner Victor Attisha made back in 2016. Michigan had just begun to set up licensing and regulatory requirements for medical cannabis “provisioning centers,” and Attisha and two others hatched a scheme to traffic illegal marijuana and launder the proceeds through a fake dispensary set up to look like it was playing by all the rules, The Detroit News reports. That dispensary, Unified Collective, opened shop right next door to Holy Moly.
According to court records and suspect interviews, the U.S. DEA seized over $700,000 from the three men alleged to have operated the weed ring. The documents indicate that the trio purchased more than $1 million in cannabis products from California suppliers and other states. They then sold those products throughout the Detroit metro area, federal prosecutors say.
Anatomy of a Detroit Weed Ring
There’s a twenty-page