Jan. 10, 2019 By Nathaly Pesantez
A Woodside man has been charged with criminal possession of marijuana, THC, and other illegal substances that he allegedly stashed in large quantities inside a College Point warehouse, according to the Queens District Attorney’s office.
Phillip Kim, a 35-year-old resident of 61st Street, now faces up to eight years in prison after authorities intercepted a shipment last week heading to City Closet Storage on 129th Street and uncovered roughly 400 bags of marijuana and 30,000 vials of THC.
NYPD Narcotics detectives first intercepted four shipping pallets from a Brooklyn location on Jan. 4, which consisted of a large vacuum sealed bag and smaller boxes with vials of an unknown substance.
Using canines and a search warrant, the substances, which were marked for delivery to the Queens location, were determined to be marijuana and THC.
City Closet Storage at 20-20 129th St. (Google Maps)
The detectives then repackaged the shipment and delivered it to the College Point storage site on Jan. 7. They also called a phone number listed on the packing slip, with the person on the other line stating that someone would be at the site to pick up the parcels.
Kim, according to authorities, showed up to the site and accepted the shipment, despite noticing a difference in the package’s appearance and the size of the truck used for delivery.
Investigators then took a deeper dive into the shipment they had delivered to the warehouse, and observed approximately 392 bags of weed and 300 shrink wrapped cartons with 100 vials each of THC—bringing the number of vials in Kim’s possession to 30,000.
“An unsuspecting late night visit by police armed with a court-authorized search warrant led to the arrest of a Queens man on drug charges and the seizure of large amounts of marijuana and THC – an extract or synthetic form of marijuana,” said Richard Brown, Queens District Attorney, in a statement. “Let this be a warning to all those who deal drugs in Queens, that you will be caught and you will be prosecuted.”
Kim faces charges of first-degree criminal possession of marijuana and fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance. He was granted supervised release, and is due back in court on Feb. 20.
