Perth Amboy Letter Carrier Admits To Ferrying Cocaine For Dealer

PERTH AMBOY, NJ — A U.S. mail carrier who lives in Perth Amboy knowingly ferried drugs for one of the biggest cocaine kingpins in New York City's history, federal prosecutors announced.

For the past two years, Bronx resident Luis Bello, 34, shipped more than 2,200 pounds from Puerto Rico to the Bronx, and sold it throughout the New York area. He made at least $620,000 profit from the illegal drug sales, prosecutors said.

How did they get the cocaine into the U.S.? Using the U.S. mail system. Members of the drug ring often sent the cocaine to post office boxes in New York and New Jersey. A New Jersey mail carrier, Jermaine Sandifer of Perth Amboy, picked up packages of drugs addressed to places along his route and brought them to Bello, prosecutors said.

The operation was lucrative — investigators found $58,000 in cash exchanges in a single month in 2011 through an account in Bello's name.

Sandifer and Bello, along with others in the ring, were indicted in 2013. Sandifer already pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to five years in prison. Bello pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

Sandifer was fired by the U.S. Postal Service.

"Today's 20 year sentencing of Bello effectively rids our community of the convicted leader of a dangerous drug trafficking and money laundering organization with ties to the Caribbean, that flooded the streets of New York with large quantities of cocaine," Angel M. Melendez, the special agent in charge in New York for U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, said in a statement.

Photo by Carly Baldwin/Patch Reporting by Noah Manskar