By Chris Fuchs
Wrapping up a four-month narcotics investigation that reached as far south as Florida, police raided an alleged drug den in East Elmhurst last week, recovering a cache of “gray market cocaine” valued at more than $1.25 million, said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
Five Queens men were arrested and accused of peddling the ersatz substance to the metropolitan market, he said.
“The East Elmhurst location at 25-41 77th St. was allegedly being used as both a storage facility and laboratory for the packaging and redistribution of so-called 'gray market cocaine,'” said the district attorney in a written statement.
The five defendants – Hermes Farinas, 44, of Flushing; Luis Munoz, 43, of Jamaica; Adella Arteaga, 39, of East Elmhurst; Fernando Perez, 40, of Elmhurst; and Alfredo Raigoza, 39, of Flushing, who was arrested last month – have each been charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance. If convicted, they each face a maximum of 25 years' imprisonment.
The investigation began in April after New York City law enforcement officials learned from the Miami-Dade Police Department of an alleged drug trafficking conduit that originated in Miami and was piped into New York, Brown said.
Once a shipment of cocaine arrived from Florida, officials allege, the defendants would “skim” some cocaine, dilute it and then reprocess it. The altered product would then be repackaged and hawked on the metropolitan gray market, officials allege.
The repackaging, they contend, was done to mask the fact that the narcotics were impure, permitting them to pass as uncolored and thus allowing the defendants to reap greater profits.
A stash of chemicals and “cutting agents” used to treat the cocaine – which is typically 90 percent pure – were also recovered from the East Elmhurst home, officials said.
Brown described the home as reeking of the “pungent odor of chemicals when it was raided [Wednesday night] by Queens Narcotics detectives.”
In all, police confiscated 10 kilograms of cocaine, worth roughly $250,000; a “quantity” of marijuana; $3,155; a five-foot high metal packaging press; and diluters and chemicals, officials said.
Last month, as part of the investigation, narcotics detectives recovered 40 kilograms of “gray market cocaine” after arresting Rigoza, officials said. In addition, detectives seized $65,000 Friday from 42-89 Crommelinn St. in Flushing, cash that is believed to be the profits of various drug sales, the district attorney's office said.
“Not only is it alleged that these defendants were ripping off their customers by selling them diluted gray market cocaine,” Brown said, “but they were ripping off their suppliers as well.”
