It just got harder to find a heroin fix in New York City.
City investigators announced Wednesday they busted two drug rings, arrested nine people and seized 55 pounds of heroin worth $12 million on the street.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton called the haul “significant heroin seizures.”
“The work of the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force during these two investigations stopped these dangerous drugs before they could reach the streets of New York City,” added State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico.
Tom Purtell, with the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau, warned that the heroin trickling into the city now is more potent.
Back in the 1980s, he said, the heroin was 5% to 10% pure.
“This new heroin is 36% to 38% pure,” he said. “It’s a health crisis that’s looming.”
In the first case, the owner of a Queens trucking company and one of his drivers were arrested Aug. 26 after a monthlong investigation, the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor reported.
Investigators “developed information” that Dorian Cabrera, owner of Good Guys trucking in Rosedale, had allegedly dispatched driver Jeen Blake with $750,000 in cash to Riverdale, Calif., to pick up 15 kilos of heroin.
The agents “tracked” the truck back to a parking lot in Hauppauge, Long Island, where they arrested Cabrera and Blake and discovered a secret compartment where the horse had been stashed.
They also seized $190,000 in cash and “some high-end jewelry” from Cabrera’s house and confiscated another $107,000 in cash from his wife’s safety deposit box at a Chase Bank branch in Valley Stream, Long Island.
Authorities say they believe the heroin was destined for New York City, where a single envelope sells for between $5 and $10, and for junkies in Long Island, where a single bag sells for $20.
Cabrera, 42, and Blake, 40, who lives in Selden, N.Y., both face numerous drug possession and conspiracy charges.
The second ring, officials said, was operating out of an apartment on Boynton Ave. in the Bronx.
On Sept. 25, police spotted Jose DeJesus, whom they described as a “target of the investigation,” hefting a heavy laundry bag to a waiting Toyota Camry driven by David Sanchez.
Inside the bag, investigators found “multiple brick-shaped packages,” each containing about seven kilos of heroin and stamped with brand names like “Prada,” “Audi,” “Pinky Dinky” and “Sin City.”
Up in the apartment, they found a “heroin mill” and arrested five other men.
DeJesus, 40, Sanchez, 36, and their alleged accomplices were hit with charges of conspiracy, drug possession and using drug paraphernalia.
