Shannell Gosine, Cocaine Courier and Money Counter, Houston TX, 2023

⏱ 3 min read

Shannell Gosine, 28, of Houston, confessed today to being a key player in a drug pipeline that flooded the Northeast with cocaine. The feds say she was a courier and money counter, moving weight from Mexico, through Texas, and up to cities like Buffalo, New York between April 2023 and February 2025. Her guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute at least five kilos of cocaine carries a minimum ten-year sentence – and could land her in prison for life.

The operation wasn’t subtle. In April 2023, cops in Ohio stopped a member of Gosine’s crew hauling nearly 19 kilos of coke bound for Buffalo. Later that year, in December, Tennessee authorities seized $100,000 from Gosine and another conspirator – cash traced back to drug buys in Buffalo. The flow didn’t stop there. In May 2024, New York State troopers found over 9 kilos of cocaine and 3.5 kilos of meth on another courier linked to the ring.

Gosine is the second of seven defendants to flip on the others. The remaining six – Winnie Taru Woods (aka Ru), Sharron McCullough (aka Black), Marlon Holt Jr. (aka Scooter & Professor), Gary Sudesh Gosine Sr., Ian Dyer, and Norman Patillo – are now exposed and facing the full weight of federal charges. The Homeland Security Task Force has been on this case for over two years, piecing together the network.

Gosine’s admission is a blow to the operation, but prosecutors are signaling they’re not done. More indictments and convictions are expected as the investigation continues, and the remaining defendants face serious time behind bars.