Of the 90 people swept up in raids yesterday targeting Toronto’s “Driftwood Crips” street gang, 19 were previously convicted in previous street gang investigations, police said Friday.

 “This group had been the focus of a major investigation started in 2007, called Project Cryptic,” Insp. Peter Moreira told reporters at a news conference Friday. He said some of the people charged Thursday were swept up in another investigation conducted in 2011.

Though police rounded up 90 suspects in Thursday morning’s raids, Moreira said 35 others are still being sought over the next few days.

Most are accused of trafficking guns, the opioid fentanyl or cocaine. Fifty-five charges of robbery were also laid.

One of those charged, a 17-year-old boy from Toronto, is accused of attempted murder using a firearm, though police would not get into the details of the allegations made against him.

Moreira said 193 fentanyl patches were seized in the investigation, along with 194 fentanyl pills.

“Fentanyl is a rising problem within this province and this country,” Moreira said. “This is a significant seizure for us.”

Also seized were 18 handguns, including 14 handguns and two sawed-off shotguns and more than 200 rounds of various calibres of ammunition.

Nearly $177,000 in cash was also found in the course of Thursday’s raids.

A total of 10 young offenders have been charged so far in the investigation. Those charged Thursday face a combined total of 485 criminal charges.

Direction from jail “nothing new”

Moreira said an unknown number of those charged Thursday were already confined in provincial or federal correctional facilities, and were allegedly directing part of the gang’s activity from behind bars.

“Directing crime from a correctional facility is nothing new in this province,”he said.

Police would not say what steps they were taking to intervene against those directing gang activities from prison, saying that any comment would reveal investigative techniques.

SIU investigating injury suffered by man in North York

The province’s Special Investigations Unit says it is probing the circumstances that led to a man in his 60s suffering an injury during a Project Kronic-related search in the Jane Street and Shoreham Drive area of North York on Thursday morning.

The SIU says that at 5:00 a.m. on Thursday, London and Toronto police officers were conducting a search of an apartment in the area and came into contact with a man in his 60s.

He suffered a serious facial injury and was taken to hospital for treatment.

The agency is asking anyone with information related to this incident to call police at 1-800-787-8529.