FBI officials announced last week that they have brought indictments against 21 individuals for their involvement in a fentanyl and cocaine ring that operated in Manchester, N.H., and was led, they said, by a resident of Shepton Street in Dorchester, located several blocks north of Ashmont Station.

The agency gave the following in a report on the indictments: Having identified 22 individuals as being involved in a longtime criminal operation, agents conducted a widespread raid on June 6 and took 21 of the 22 suspects into custody.

One of the raids occurred at the 15 Shepton Street address, where agents and the Boston Police arrested three men, including the man they called the ringleader of the criminal enterprise, 53-year-old Juan Ramon ‘Ricky’ Soto Baez. The others were Osvaldo ‘Tony’ David Soto Jimenez, 29, of Dorchester, and Brandon Rivera, 21, of Boston. Five other defendants arrested that day also listed Boston addresses.

According to the indictments, the 21 suspects trafficked large quantities of fentanyl and crack cocaine across state lines, utilizing a business model the FBI said mirrored a sophisticated drug trafficking operation by which customers would use dispatch telephone numbers to call in orders for drugs that runners would supply by meeting buyers at predetermined locations, often inside the runners’ vehicles.

During the raids, law enforcement seized approximately 1.6 kilograms of suspected cocaine, 150 grams of suspected cocaine base, 250 grams of suspected fentanyl, 100 bags of suspected controlled substances packaged for sale, $26,000 in cash, and four firearms. 

The defendants are scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston sometime this month.