Pubdate: Tue, 20 May 2014
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A1
Copyright: 2014 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: J. David Goodman
Note: MAP archives articles exactly as published, except that our editors
may redact the names and addresses of accused persons who have not been
convicted of a crime, if those named are not otherwise public figures or
officials.

NEW YORK IS A HUB IN A SURGING HEROIN TRADE

The flood of heroin coming into and going out of New York City has
surged to the highest levels in more than two decades, alarming law
enforcement officials who say that bigger players are now entering the
market to sell the drug here and to feed a growing appetite along the
East Coast.

The amount of heroin seized in investigations involving the city's
special narcotics prosecutor has already surpassed last year's totals,
and is higher than any year going back to 1991.

The drug makes its way here in trucks rumbling north from Mexico; as
they get closer to New York, they park at truck stops or warehouses to
transfer loads of heroin to cars bound for mills in the Bronx or Upper
Manhattan and, eventually, to users along the Eastern Seaboard at
prices ranging from $6 to $10 per glassine envelope.

The rise in heroin use nationwide has been well documented, as the
drug has created addicts and caused the deaths of well-known figures,
like the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, and young people in
middle-class families from Staten Island to Vermont.

What the authorities are seeing now is the outgrowth of all that drug
abuse, said Bridget G. Brennan, the special narcotics prosecutor whose
office deals primarily with large-scale operations: far-flung drug
organizations accelerating to meet heroin demand by setting up New
York operations that are growing in sophistication and output.

"We're kind of the head of the Hydra," said Ms. Brennan, who is
scheduled to testify about heroin trends during a City Council budget
hearing on Tuesday. "This is highly organized, high volume, and it's
being moved much more efficiently and effectively to reach out to a
broader user base."

Her office recorded more than 288 pounds of heroin seized in the first
four months of 2014, a figure that does not account for the everyday,
street-level drug deals in the city. On Staten Island, where dealers
are often users themselves and the rate of overdose is the city's
highest, the office has no heroin cases because there are few big-time
players there, authorities said.

Nonetheless, in arrests of users and dealers, Staten Island narcotics
detectives have recorded a steep increase in the amount of heroin
taken off the street there so far this year - up 61 percent compared
with 2013. Detectives are also beginning to find organized networks of
dealers there, in what had long been a haven of low crime rates and
unlocked doors.

"It's cheap, it's potent and there's a user demand here right now and
they're flooding the market," said James J. Hunt, who heads the Drug
Enforcement Administration's New York office. "In my time, we've never
seen the amount of large heroin seizures like this."

Roughly 35 percent of heroin seized by the Drug Enforcement
Administration nationwide since October was confiscated by agents in
New York State. In years past, the state has accounted for about
one-fifth of heroin seizures nationwide.

Mr. Hunt said that distributors of drugs favor locating hubs in New
York City for the same reason that business have flocked here for
centuries: a big local market and easy access to other East Coast areas.

Nearly all of the heroin feeding the city passes through the Bronx and
Upper Manhattan, where it is divided up into glassine bags in
so-called heroin mills, stamped with a brand and bundled for
distribution and sale. One recent raid, in March, turned up a piece of
paper listing possible brand names, as well as those already used, and
stamped bags with an image of Heisenberg, a character from the TV show
"Breaking Bad."

The latest example came Monday, as the authorities announced the
arrest of two suspected high-level traffickers in one Bronx-based drug
organization, and seizure of 53 pounds of heroin along with assault
rifles, $85,000 in cash and about 20 pounds of cocaine. Federal agents
and officers tracked the two suspects' drug-laden cars across state
lines to a low-rise apartment building in Hartford, officials said,
rushing in before the drugs could be poured down the sink.

For users in the city, that proximity to the distribution points means
lower prices than in other areas of the country. Mr. Hunt said a
kilogram of heroin could go for as little as $40,000 in New York City
but as much as $80,000 in Springfield, Mass. "Every pair of hands it
goes through, you're taking on money," he said.

Ms. Brennan said that in many of her cases, the Sinaloa cartel,
Mexico's largest, is exporting the heroin using familiar cocaine
trafficking routes and arranging to have the drug transported in
otherwise legitimate tractor-trailer trucks. The ability of the cartel
- - known for distributing cocaine and marijuana - to capitalize on a
lucrative market for heroin does not appear to have been dampened by
the February arrest of its leader, Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as El
Chapo. Other organizations have also joined in, Mr. Hunt said.

Across New York City, the Police Department logged seizures of 786
pounds of heroin in 2013, the highest such number in at least five
years. So far this year, officers have seized 217 pounds of heroin,
versus 139 pounds last year at this time, according to department statistics.

The arrest of the two suspected Bronx-based traffickers announced on
Monday provided a small glimpse into a typical heroin distribution
center.

The suspects, [name1 redacted], 33, and [name2 redacted] 28,
carried the drug from a seventh-floor Bronx apartment near Interstate
87 in suitcases and a white box, the authorities said. The men drove
the drugs up to a Hartford safe house, one in a Jeep Cherokee and the
other in an Acura sedan, the authorities said. They were arrested
there on Friday.

A search the next day of a storage unit off Interstate 95 in the Bronx
turned up a pair of assault rifles, a handgun and kilogram presses,
which are used to create packages of drugs that mimic the look of
uncut heroin just delivered from across the border, Ms. Brennan said.

Both men were charged with felony drug possession and conspiracy; they
are awaiting extradition from Hartford to New York.  
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D