By Dustin Brown
Four Astoria men have been arrested for allegedly using their apartments as stash houses to package, store and deal illegal drugs, the Queens district attorney said Tuesday.
Abdelhak Kairouani, 43, and Noureedin Mzouz, 38, both of 21-75 Steinway St., and Abdelaziz Tahri, 45, and Azelmad Abdelghani, 43, of 31-44 44th St. face up to 15 to 25 years in prison if convicted, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
They have been charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal possession of marijuana and criminally using drug paraphernalia, Brown said.
“The defendants were alleged to have been dealing drugs by packaging them in their apartment and then selling them out of coffee shops and social clubs on Steinway Street in Astoria,” Brown said in a statement. “Whether a drug operation is large or small, on the street or in a living room, law enforcement will wipe it out and send the drug dealers to prison.”
Detectives who searched the apartments recovered 18 bricks of hashish weighing more than 38 pounds, two grams of marijuana, an ounce of cocaine, $2,500 in cash, a shotgun and various Moroccan passports and other forms of identification, the district attorney said. An additional $36,000 were found along with more passports in an Astoria safe deposit box.
