Massive NYC Drug Bust Scores $3M Worth Of Cocaine, Officials Say

NEW YORK — Authorities have charged more than a dozen people in a massive drug bust that led to New York City's biggest cocaine seizure in recent history, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Investigators nabbed 176 pounds of cocaine worth nearly $3 million from a car and a Queens apartment on Feb. 28 as part of the yearlong local and federal investigation, which has culminated in drug charges against 19 New Yorkers, according the Bronx District Attorney's Office, which is prosecuting the case.

Two of those people — Alvon Pierre of Queens and Elvis Gomez of The Bronx — are accused of operating as a major trafficker, the office said. Authorities arrested 14 of them on May 1 but have not yet cuffed the five others, including Gomez, prosecutors say.

"We will stop traffickers of any illicit drugs that devastate lives and neighborhoods," Bronx DA Darcel Clark said in a statement. "These defendants allegedly distributed large amounts of cocaine sold on the streets of the Bronx, and peddled dangerous ‘date rape’ drugs that wind up in bars and nightclubs."

The cocaine ring that authorities took down sold the drug in bulk to distributors, prosecutors say. The supply was eventually pushed to the streets — packets went for $10 to $20 on Valentine Avenue between the Grand Concourse and East 187th Street in The Bronx, the DA's office said.

Authorities on Feb. 28 found part of the massive cocaine stash packed in suitcases in a Flushing apartment linked to Pierre and another defendant, Robert Nieves, prosecutors say. And $135,000 in cash was found in a compartment in Gomez's Saturn SUV in The Bronx on Dec. 31, according to the DA's office.

One of the three indictments in the cases accuses five people of distributing ecstasy, Xanax and ketamine, drugs that pop up in nightclubs around the city, prosecutors say.

Two of the people charged allegedly imported the drugs from overseas, prosecutors said. Authorities in Belgium nabbed more than a pound of controlled substances bound for Manhattan and The Bronx, according to prosecutors.

In all, the three indictments charge the 19 people with 227 counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal sale of a controlled substance and conspiracy, the DA's office said. Twelve of the 14 defendants have been arraigned, the office said Wednesday afternoon.

The takedown grew out of a probe by the Bronx DA's Office, the NYPD, the U.S. Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations, officials said.