Narcotics Investigators Raid Heroin Packaging Mill In Fort Lee
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - Law enforcement agents had taken down so many heroin packaging mills in Washington Heights that the drug dealers tried something new, WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reports.
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But investigators were watching as they would use a van to pick up heroin mill workers near their homes in Washington Heights and drive them straight across the George Washington Bridge to Fort Lee, New Jersey.
The heroin mill there was set up in a beautiful new home at 461 Grandview Place, right down the street from an elementary school.
When investigators from the New York City's office special narcotics prosecutor raided that house, they found the commuting heroin mill workers, and, in the kitchen, the woman who lived there.
She was visibly stamping brand names on heroin glassines while her pre-school-aged daughter sat at the same table - eating her breakfast cereal and watching cartoons on television.
Over $1.5 million in heroin was seized and 10 members of the narcotics trafficking ring were arrested Thursday afternoon.
Agents seized 2.5 kilograms of unprocessed heroin and 100,000 user-ready glassines. Also recovered was approximately $50,000 in cash.
The Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor has been busy.
There were allegedly street sales of heroin in another place you might not expect it - Park Slope, Brooklyn.
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Those streets featured the main target of the investigation speeding along on a brightly colored three-wheeled motorcycle, tossing hundreds of glassines of heroin into the car windows of his clients, taking an envelope full of cash in return, and speeding off.
Special narcotics prosecutor Bridget Brennan said more than 60 of these sales were made to undercover cops in broad daylight on leafy brownstone-lined streets next to Prospect Park.
"When we arrested him and recovered that motorcycle we found a motorcycle helmet with "sin city" emblazoned on it and we recovered 1,400 glassines of heroin from inside the motorcycle itself," she told WCBS 880 reporter Irene Cornell.
Sin City was one of the heroin brand names as well.
