Drug Suppliers Who Had Cocaine Shipped In Toy Boxes Get 11 Years

NEW YORK — Two Puerto Rican drug suppliers who had cocaine shipped to the New York City area in boxes of kids' toys will spend more than a decade behind bars, officials say.

A Manhattan Supreme Court judge on Thursday sentenced Luis Xavier Melendez Sanchez and Eliud Torres to 11 years in prison and five years of post release supervision on a charge of criminal possesion of a controlled substance, the city's Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor said.

Torres and Melendez Sanchez were among 15 people arrested in 2017 in connection with a Bronx-based cocaine ring, the office said. The men, who pleaded guilty on May 8, shipped cocaine from Puerto Rico to the operation's leader, Ariel Lopez Acosta, sometimes stashing drugs in boxes of children's toys or exercise equipment, authorities said.

"In the midst of the opioid epidemic gripping our city, we must not forget that cocaine related deaths are also on the rise," Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan said in a statement. "The volume of cocaine smuggled into New York City by the Sanchez-Torres organization through the mail, simply concealed in innocent looking packages, is a grim reminder of that sad fact."

Authorities nabbed 46 pounds of cocaine worth about $4.5 million during the long-term probe that busted up the drug conspiracy, which lasted from August 2015 to February 2017, Brennan's office said. Also seized were about $90,000 in jewelry, about $150,000 in cash, a stun gun and a rifle, the office said.

Melendez Sanchez and Torres were accused of arranging shipments of drugs from Puerto Rico to Lopez Acosta's underlings in New York and New Jersey, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in 2017. To pay for them, Lopez Acosta gave cash to another man who arranged for it to be delivered to the two suppliers in Puerto Rico, according to the DEA.

Torres and Melendez Sanchez were also sentenced Thursday to one to three years behind bars on a conspiracy charge, which they will serve concurrently with the longer prison term, the prosecutor's office said. All other defendants in the case have pleaded guilty and been sentenced, according to the office.

Melendez Sanchez's attorney, Gary Lesser, declined to comment on the sentencing. Torres's attorney did not immediately return a message seeking comment.