Agents and officers, who worked on the case for six months, also recovered three guns — including two assault rifles — and $85,000 in cash during the bust.
Credit: Handout
Police and federal agents intercepted more than 50 pounds of heroin and 20 pounds of cocaine, busting a drug ring that supplied what authorities described as the source for massive amounts of heroin sold throughout the northeast region.
Investigators made the cross-agency bust last week mid-delivery between the Bronx and Connecticut, where police said the heroin has at least double its street value in New York City.
The confiscated heroin alone is thought to be worth $11 million.
Two men were arrested in connection to the ring: Edualin Tapia and Guillermo Esteban Margarin, who were seen entering an apartment off of Orloff Avenue in the Bronx suspect to be a heroin mill.
On May 16, the two men drove to Hartford, Connecticut with nearly 22 pounds of the heroin and walked into an apartment with another box of nearly 29 pounds of heroin.
A joint task force of federal Drug Enforcement Agency officers, NYPD detectives and New york State police investigators entered the apartment while the suspects prepared to dump a white substance down a sink.
After the arrests, authorities searched the apartment off Orloff Avenue, a second apartment off of Paterson Avenue and a storage space off Zerega Avenue thought to be a secret stash.
Officers made the bust last week mid-delivery between the Bronx and Connecticut, where police said the heroin has at least double its street value in NYC. Credit: Handout
Among the recovered weapons, officers also found 200 pills of Molly, an MDMA club drug.
Both men were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree and conspiracy, and are being detained in Connecticut pending extradition.
“These seizures and arrests demonstrate that NYC is ground zero of heroin distribution networks supplying the Northeast, as well as being the prime market Mexican drug traffickers are using to earn profit from the sale of poison,” wrote DEA Special Agent James J. Hunt in a statement.
“Thanks to the hard work of the investigators and prosecutors involved in this case, a massive drug operation trafficking millions of dollars’ worth of narcotics throughout the East Coast has come to an end,” added Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.
