Law enforcement officials conducted raids at seven homes recovering heroin laced with fentanyl, crack cocaine and an arsenal of weapons.
Photo courtesy of the DA’s office
A family-run drug trafficking ring that was operating out of a park in Jamaica, Queens was dismantled following a 15-month investigation, District Attorney Melinda Katz announced Thursday.
The sprawling drug trafficking operation, which was run by a family doing business in Queens to Westchester County, was taken down earlier this month after law enforcement officials executed search warrants at seven homes following a series of undercover drug buys at a park in Jamaica. Authorities also wiretapped the defendants’ phones and searched three vehicles.
The busts took place on Dec. 4 and 5 after cops searched houses in Queens, Yonkers and Suffolk County, resulting in the seizure of one and a half kilograms laced with fentanyl; more than 10,000 glassines of heroin; four kilograms of cocaine; more than 250 vials of crack cocaine; eight guns, including an assault weapon stashed in a hidden compartment in a storage shed; and $140,587 in cash.
Eleven defendants were charged on drugs and weapons charges, with six arraigned in Queens Supreme Court on Dec. 7 and five arraigned in Queens Criminal Court on Dec.6.
According to the charges, in August 2022, a joint investigation by the Queens District Attorney’s Office and the NYPD’s Queens South Violent Crimes Squad was launched into a drug trafficking ring operating out of Major Mark Park on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica. Undercover cops made a total of 26 buys of heroin and cocaine with four of the defendants, resulting in the seizure of drugs with a street value of $4,030. All of the heroin contained some fentanyl.
During the course of the investigation, dubbed “One The Mark,” multiple communications among the defendants were recorded on wiretaps discussing the purchase, sale and possession of drugs, possession and supply of firearms, and…
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