NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Officials on Monday raided a Queens drug mill and seized over 86 lbs. of heroin - worth $12 million, 1,000 fentanyl pills, and $200,000 in cash.
"Monday evening, we dismantled a highly sophisticated heroin mill in the heart of queens," said DEA Special Agent in Charge Ray Donovan. "This drug den contained nearly $12 million dollars' worth of narcotics and was like an opioid landmine capable of dispersing hundreds of thousands of heroin doses throughout Northeast. I applaud our law enforcement partners on their quick and thorough investigation."
On February 8, at approximately 4 p.m., members investigators were conducting surveillance and observed Luis Martinez, a suspected narcotics trafficker, exiting 63-16 Forest Avenue in Ridgewood carrying a backpack, officials said in a press release.
Agents and officers stopped Martinez as he walked down the block and found that the bag allegedly contained approximately $200,000 cash.
Martinez was also carrying four cellphones and keys to 63-16 Forest Avenue, according to officials.
A short time later, Members of T-21 entered the Forest Avenue location and knocked on the door of Apartment 2A where Sofia Medina opened the apartment door.
Inside the living room, agents and officers saw an empty heat-wrapped bag of a type used for wrapping a kilogram of narcotics and heard noises coming from behind a closed door.
Upon opening the door, they discovered two women, Jacqueline Sosa De Espinal and Maria Altagracia Berroa, hiding inside a bathroom with the lights off.
A search of the apartment revealed that one of its two bedrooms was set up for packaging heroin where authorities recovered 31 pressed, brick-shaped packages wrapped in duct tape, each allegedly containing a kilogram of heroin and an additional six kilograms of loose powder inside plastic containers and zip-lock style bags.
Special Narcotics Prosecutor
A tabletop held approximately 100,000 individual dose glassine envelopes filled with heroin, as well as empty envelopes and stamps. Glassine envelopes bore various brand names, including "Red Scorpion," "The Hulk," "Universal," "Hard Target," "Last Dragon, "Dope" and "Venom." All of the equipment necessary for processing and packaging heroin was also present in the bedroom, including digital scales, sifters, and grinders.
Agents and officers also seized approximately 1,000 blue pills bearing markings similar to pharmaceutically produced oxycodone but suspected to be counterfeits containing fentanyl.
Special Narcotics Prosecutor
More than 26 cellphones and mail addressed to Martinez were also recovered from the apartment, according to officials.
DEA estimates the street value of the narcotics at $12 million.
"The shuttering of an assembly line able to pump out millions of street-ready heroin packages and deadly counterfeit fentanyl pills will save lives across New York City and our entire region," said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan in a statement.
