With the organization dismantled, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said Thursday he hopes the city’s violence will slow. While the indictments focus on cocaine, Dotson said it was a “poly-drug” outfit that varied its products to meet demand.

“This is one of the biggest roundups of violent offenders in the city of St. Louis,” he said. “As we kept peeling away at it, we kept finding there was more and more to it that ultimately connected St. Louis to Texas and Mexico.

“I’m hoping to see a reduction in the amount of narcotics coming into the city and a slowing in violence in the city’s crime rate overall. This is a great case with great arrests but there’s still a lot more work to do.”

St. Louis police announced earlier this week that reported violent crimes were up 7.8 percent in 2015 over the year before, and homicides were up 18.2 percent.

Some of those connected to the drug ring are associates of former city police officer Don McGhee, Dotson said.

McGhee, 28, nearly killed in an off-duty shootout a year ago, pleaded guilty in April of conspiracy for providing a shotgun to someone he knew to be a drug dealer. He was since resigned from the department, and is serving two years in prison.