Police Bust Greenpoint Meatery for "Hot Kielbasa" Cocaine

WNBC reports that the NYPD shut down a drug operation in a Brooklyn meat market--Sikorski Meat Market on Manhattan Avenue. The police had caught the drug dealers on wiretaps referring to "hot kielbasa," and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained, "the ‘kielbasa’ was really cocaine, and thanks to outstanding police work it’s no longer available at the meat market." More details: Livery cabs were used for delivering the shipments and "Polish and Dominican crews teamed up to run the ring" (hello, melting pot!).

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on October 10, 2008 2:52 PM

Comments [rss]

meganificent

Sikorski was open this morning... Is it business as usual?

jaycjay

Funny, but it's not likely that just any stranger could walk into the place and ask for "hot kilbasa" and buy coke. It's the term they used among themselves on the phones that were tapped. The market was a storage and distribution point, not a take-out store. Street level sales would be a step or two down the line.

matty

what would happen if you ordered some "hot kilbasa" and instead of "hot kilbasa" you actually got hot kilbasa.

that would be a pretty funny mix up.

NannyState

I prefer my hot rails with mustard on the side.

Barbj8

Great. Now I'm hungry.

emilydickinson

I guess they learned their lesson from the whole 'Cokies' debacle in the late 1990's and decided to get smart and use clever code words.

sarahlucy

haha this is exactly like on weeds...with the pot sandwiches

jaycjay

"reminds me of henry hill putting heroin in tomato cans."

Except that they weren't actually putting cocaine in the kielbasa, they were just using the term "hot kielbasa" to refer to it so that the calls might seem legitimate. Replacing the more common term, "CDs."