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DETROIT — Milton “Butch” Jones, the notorious co-founder and leader of the revolutionary 1970s Detroit heroin gang Young Boys Inc. (YBI), has died at age 70. According to a report from crime news outlet The Gangster Report, Jones died of a heart attack on Wednesday. He had been released from a federal prison to a halfway house just two months prior.
Jones’s death brings an end to the life of a man federal authorities long described as one of the most dangerous and transformative figures in Detroit’s underworld history. At the height of its power, his YBI organization was estimated to control an overwhelming majority of the city’s heroin trade.
A Criminal Innovator
Often called the “Henry Ford of Heroin,” Jones is credited with bringing corporate-style innovation to the wholesale narcotics trade. Under his leadership in the late 1970s and early 1980s, YBI pioneered chillingly effective tactics, most notoriously the systematic use of minors to sell drugs on school playgrounds, knowing they faced lighter legal penalties. The gang also used taxi cabs to move large quantities of heroin.
“He was the ‘Henry Ford of Heroin’ and he was very proud of that moniker and reputation,” Scott Burnstein, editor of The Gangster Report, told Deadline Detroit. “His vision and innovation as a gangster were only matched by his sheer viciousness and ruthless ambition.”
A Long Path Through the Justice System
Jones’s criminal career was marked by violence and lengthy prison sentences. After serving less than a decade for his initial YBI conviction, he returned to Detroit’s Westside and took over the Dawg Pound Gang. He was later convicted for his role in the 1996 murders of two associates within that gang.
In 2008, at age 53, Jones was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to drug charges that involved two murders. At the sentencing, Robert Corso, then head of the Detroit DEA, said the term ensured “the community is a much safer place with him behind bars.”
In late 2020, Jones’s attorney sought compassionate release, citing his client’s failing health, including end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis and type II diabetes. A federal judge denied the request, and the ruling was upheld on appeal.
A Complicated and Violent Legacy
Jones’s influence extended far beyond his own imprisonment. The YBI model of organized, branded drug distribution is seen as a direct precursor to other notorious Detroit organizations like the Chambers Brothers.
“At the end of the day, however, he was a brutal killer and that can’t be overlooked,” Burnstein said.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ online database confirms Jones died on Wednesday, January 7, 2026.