Many Five Percenters are sincere in their religious beliefs and are peaceful, law abiding citizens. However, the Five Percenters' belief that nothing created on earth can harm them has led many into drug abuse. And those who are pugnacious are usually involved in drug distribution and use their membership in the religious sect strictly for the attendant benefits. The SCI has developed information on more than 1,000 Five Percenters engaged in drug distribution in Camden, Atlantic City, Trenton, Asbury Park, Long Branch, Red Bank, Elizabeth, Newark and Plainfield.

One New Jersey-based Five Percenter group, a splinter group called the Aso Posse, was led by Hakeem Abdul Shaheed (akaRobertE. Molley, aka Midget Molley), who oversaw a multi-kilo cocaine distribution network in Atlantic City. Shaheed, a resident of Vineland, was estimated to have controlled a drug network of 60 persons, the majority of whom were also Five Percenters. Shaheed, who often flaunted his drug financed wealth by wearing a gold crown, had grown up in the poverty of the Atlantic City public housing projects. Ironically, residents of these same projects became the ultimate victims of Shaheed's cocaine trafficking.

Victor (Shorty) Fernandez, a Dominican who lived in Edgewater and in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, was the principal supplier of cocaine to Shaheed's organization. In February, 1989, Shaheed, Fernandez, and 18 members of the drug distribution network were arrested by federal authorities, who estimated that Shaheed's organization was obtaining and distributing $1 million worth of cocaine per month in the Atlantic City projects. Shortly after Shaheed's arrest, several Jamaican drug dealers from Brooklyn moved into the Atlantic City projects to take over his territory. Shaheed was convicted and on January 22, 1990, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison.