Two Men Indicted After 500 Pounds Of Drugs Found On Plane At Teterboro Airport

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — After 27 pounds of suspected cocaine and 513 pounds of suspected marijuana were found on a private plane scheduled to head from Teterboro Airport to Great Britain last month, a man with suspected mob ties and another man were arrested, federal court documents show.

Leonard Petrosillo and Edwin "Money" Spears were indicted on Dec. 14 for felony conspiracy to export controlled substances, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, and attempted export of controlled substances, a federal indictment says.

Spears is listed in a New Jersey Attorney General release from 2010 as "an admitted 'five-star general' in the Nine Trey Gangsters set of the Bloods" who at one point allegedly "formed alliances with members of the Lucchese Crime Family to smuggle drugs and cell phones into East Jersey State Prison."

An FBI complaint from last month says that on Nov. 16 at 2:30 p.m., U.S. Customs and Border Patrol conducted a border inspection of a private plane scheduled to head to Liverpool John Lennon Airport in England.

Spears, Petrosillo, and three other people were listed as the only passengers, said the FBI complaint.

Customs found 12.6 kilograms of suspected cocaine in a small luggage bag, the complaint says. They also found the marijuana in 12 large luggage bags, and 1,000 cartridges of suspected THC. Field testing later confirmed what the substances were, the FBI said.

"Spears claimed ownership over the suspected narcotics," the FBI said in its complaint.

After Petrosillo, Spears, and two of the other people were arrested, three fake drivers' licenses and two fake Social Security cards were found in Petrosillo's possession, the complaint says.

The indictment also charges Petrosillo with possession of five or more false identification documents.

After law enforcement officials obtained surveillance videos, they found that Spears and Petrosillo arrived at a hotel near the airport early that morning, the complaint says. Video shows them moving some of the luggage and boxes around that were later found during the search, the complaint says.