Brooklyn Drug Ring Imported Cocaine Using Minion and 'Frozen' Dolls: NYPD

Photos courtesy of the NYC Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

An NYC drug ring imported around $225,000 in cocaine from Puerto Rico by disguising the drugs as children’s toys, according to a 71-count indictment issued by the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

The ring’s alleged strategy was to gift-wrap kilos of cocaine in kid-friendly wrapping paper and ship them alongside stuffed Minion and Olaf dolls.

(Olaf being the singing snowman from “Frozen,” obviously.)

NYPD officers say they’ve been wiretapping the four-man drug ring for nearly a year. During that time, they say they bought more than $41,000 worth of cocaine while posing as clients in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side.

The individual role each man played, according to investigators:

• Albert Fortosa: “Top of the supply chain” for cocaine. Based in Harlem. Arranged for five bulk shipments of cocaine, each containing around one kilo, to be sent from Puerto Rico to New York City via U.S. Postal Service express mail. Concealed the drugs in gift-wrapped boxes and packed them alongside children’s toys. Arrested near Central Park as he accepted one such package. (”Inside was a gift bag with a stuffed toy Minion and two boxes covered in ’happy birthday’ wrapping paper. The gift wrapped boxes held the kilogram of cocaine.”) Dropped the package when confronted by police and tried to flee, “flailing at officers.”

• Daniel Reyes: ”A drug delivery service operator based in Bushwick, Brooklyn” who sold “cocaine, heroin, MDMA and prescription drugs, including oxycodone and Xanax.” On May 21, in the largest sale of the investigation, Reyes sold a $7,000 grab-bag of various drugs to an undercover officer — including ”100 grams of cocaine, 100 individual dose glassine envelopes of heroin and 50 Xanax pills.”

• Derrick Santana: ”Allegedly sold drugs in nightclubs in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well as other locations.” Sold $17,095 in cocaine to undercover NYPD officers.

• Joseph Owens: Fortosa’s right-hand man.
  

All four of the men named in the indictment have pleaded “not guilty” to a slew of charges including conspiracy, criminal sale of a controlled substance, criminal possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest.

In a press statement on the bust, Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan calls the Minion/Olaf strategy “a failed attempt to conceal... sinister contents.”

In the same statement, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton thanks the NYPD, the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor and the U.S. Postal Service for ”intercepting these drugs before they could reach the streets of New York City.”