Ramael Artis Gets 106 Months for Heroin, Gun Trade

Ramael Artis, also known as “Rah,” 36, of Norwich, is headed to federal prison for more than eight years after being sentenced to 106 months for trafficking heroin and swapping the drug for firearms. The sentence, handed down today by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant in Hartford, includes five years of supervised release following his prison term.

On March 15, 2016, federal agents executed a court-authorized search of Artis’s apartment in Norwich, uncovering approximately 50 grams of heroin, a stash of cocaine, and drug packaging materials. The evidence painted a clear picture: Artis wasn’t just using narcotics—he was processing and prepping them for street-level sale, fueling addiction and violence in the community.

The probe, led by the FBI’s Northern Connecticut Safe Streets Task Force and local police from Groton, Norwich, and Waterford, exposed a dangerous pattern. Between July 2015 and March 2016, Artis traded heroin for four separate handguns. Each exchange tightened the link between drug trafficking and illegal firearms, arming individuals with a history steeped in violence and theft.

Artis has been locked up since his arrest on that March day in 2016. Nearly a year and a half later, on October 4, 2017, he pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute heroin and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime—admitting his role in a cycle of addiction and armed criminality.

His record isn’t clean. Far from it. Artis’s criminal history is littered with felony convictions for firearm offenses, narcotics crimes, robbery, and larceny—each one a fresh scar on the community he exploited. This latest conviction adds federal time to a life already defined by crime.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Stolfi Collins, who emphasized the threat Artis posed by merging drug distribution with illegal gun acquisition. The investigation underscores a broader crackdown on the underground economy where heroin buys bullets—and lives get destroyed one trade at a time.