Riverdale Heroin Bust Results in 31 Arrests

As a result of a 9-month-long joint investigation involving wiretaps on 28 telephone lines, video surveillance, and "buys" by undercover detectives, the NYPD has busted a massive heroin ring in the Fordham section of the Bronx. Known as "La Perla Organization," it dealt an estimated $40,000 a day worth of the drug at three street corners in the Bronx, and operated out of three mills in Riverdale and Pehlam Parkway. The Bronx DA says an "overwhelming" number of those arrested were members of the Latin Kings.

In shifts around the clock, workers carefully spooned the powder into glassine packets, which were sold for $10 each. Police found a half-million of the envelopes and nearly half a million dollars in cash during the bust, and the 31 arrested were charged 82 counts of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and varying counts of the possession and sale of heroin. Ring leaders Wilson Guerrero, 48; Antonio Carasquillo, 51; Enrique Esquillin 45; and Luis Esquillin, 47, face up to life in prison.

The bust points to the growing heroin epidemic in and around the city. Just last year, artist Dash Snow died of a heroin overdose, and Chauncey Parker, director of the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, says the purity level of what is on the streets is "alarmingly high, so people are sniffing it." The DEA is also saying that drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin are the new gateway drugs, leading mainly young, middle-class kids into heroin use. A 22-year-old Suffolk County addict said he began selling it because "all the little rich kids were doing it," and then began snorting the drug because he thought it would be easy to quit. He said, "By the time I went into detox, I was up to 60 bags [glassines] a day."

Prosecutors say the ring was even bigger than anything in the Barnes era, supplying dealers as far away as Boston with the drug. Joseph Evans of the DEA said, "The Northeast corridor has the most predominant heroin use, and 14% of all heroin seized in the U.S. is seized in New York City." Authorities expect to make more arrests.

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

By Jaya Saxena in News on July 28, 2010 12:34 PM

Comments [rss]

Tower18

The way I read it, the drug ring operates/sells in Fordham, but is making the drugs in the slightly safer, lower-profile neighborhoods of Riverdale and Pelham Parkway (which I'm assuming means that fairly decent neighborhood East of the zoo, next to Morris Park).

Tamar Weinberg

Way to single out Riverdale out of all of those areas!

I like how Jen follows the feedback from readers and makes corrections based on comments. Where's Jaya?

Clearly the folks at Gothamist don't know about the geography north of Washington Heights. Then again, neither did I when I was at Barnard/Columbia as a student. (Yeah, I know which *ist writers went there. I even worked with Jake.)

John L

See this is the result of good police work that lowers crime and didn't even take one innocent New Yorker's rights to be violated or humiliated and demeaned by being subjected to ineffective "Stop & Frisks". See what can happen if you let cops do substantial work, instead of saddling them with stupid quotas.

Boogie Down

Where's Pehlam Parkway? Also, as others have pointed out, Fordham =/= Riverdale. You know there's this handy website called "Google" that generates some pretty nifty maps. Jesus.

Tench

There were multiple arrests -- some in Riverdale, some elsewhere in the Bronx.

Gothamist left out the best part though -- they were hiding the drugs in Build-a-Bear Teddy Bears!

RabbiLaFunque

What are you talking about man, how do you figure Fordham is Riverdale. What are you HIGH, man? Huh? Coño, man, are you freakin loco?! Lay off that manteca, man, it's messin with your MIND!

Guest

now, that's 'benny blanco from the bronx' from carlito's way in character.

brasilnut58

Since when is the Fordham section of da Bronx in or near Riverdale? Perhaps La Perla Inc. had take out? You know door to door to drug delivery. These swarthy Latinos were pretty business minded and the demand among white hipsters and New Jerseyeans is insatiable!