NYC Drug Runners Hid Heroin In Tomato Boxes, Prosecutors Say

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Two accused drug traffickers arrested in Washington Heights were hit with drug charges Thursday after they were busted trying to bring more than 20 pounds of heroin into the city, prosecutors announced.

Abel Abad and David Collazo were charged with conspiracy and criminal possession of a controlled substance for a scheme to import heroin into New York City from Chicago, New York City’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor said.

The two men were arrested on May 1 after crossing into Washington Heights from Fort Lee, New Jersey, on the George Washington Bridge, prosecutors said. Agents tracked both men as traveled in different cars to met a Best Western Hotel on Route 4 in Fort Lee, entered the hotel together and then left the hotel carrying a cardboard box, prosecutors said. The men then entered the same car and crossed the bridge into New York City, prosecutors said.

Agents stopped the men on the Henry Hudson Parkway and West 158th Street and found more than four ponds of heroin in the cardboard box, prosecutors said. Abad was also in possession of a forged driver’s license, earning him a charge of possession of a forged instrument.

After Abad and Collazo were arrested during the stop, agents returned to the Best Western in Fort Lee and were led to a U-Haul parked at the hotel by a K-9 unit, prosecutors said. Agents found an additional 18 pounds of heroin inside several boxes of raw tomatoes in the truck. The drugs were hidden inside false bottoms of the tomato boxes, prosecutors said.

Investigators determined that the drugs were intended to be sold to a customer in the Bronx and were originally packed into the tomato boxes in Chicago, prosecutors said. Information uncovered in the investigation led to more drug seizures in Chicago.

The drugs seized in New York and New Jersey carried a street value of more than $3 million, prosecutors said.

Photos courtesy Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor