Officials released these images, taken from suspects’ social media accounts. (Credit: Manhattan district attorney’s office)
Prosecutors said they busted dozens of Lower East Side cocaine runners, including four kingpins they called major traffickers.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance and Police Commisioner Ray Kelly announced the 41 defendants’ indictments today.
The drug rings allegedly sold hundreds of thousands of dollors of cocaine a year, they said. Many of the suspects already had violent histories, from murder to gang assault to unsolved shootings, Kelly added.
Members allegedlyused car services to deliver cocaine to customers all over the city, from the Upper East and West Sides to Brooklyn and Queens. They charged about $120 per gram of cocaine, officials said.
Two of the defendants charged are livery drivers.
“Residents of Manhattan today can get nearly everything delivered to their doorstep – from dinner, to dry cleaning and even cocaine,” Vance said.
Prosecutors outlined charges against 33 of the Lower East Side “Blocc Boyz” street gang members, as well as eight in the “Money Boyz” street gang in the East Village.
The alleged gang members spent the cash on liquor, BMWs and a Queens strip club called Perfection, according to court documents.
At the same time as they boasted pictures with wads of cash on Facebook, Vance said, they were living in city-subsidized NYCHA housing.
“Hardworking families should not have to live side by side with drug dealers poisoning their communities,” he said.
In a separate case, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara also announced drug-trafficking arrests today.
He charged 12 people in the Bronx with drug trafficking crack cocaine as well as three murders and a drug-related shooting.
The arrests followed a seven-year investigation where undercover NYPD officers made hundreds of cocaine purchases, officials said.
