Minnie Mouse Drug Bust Takes Down Brooklyn Dealers, Officials Say

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — This could be why Minnie Mouse always seems so chipper.

A Brooklyn-based drug ring that stuffed Minnie Mouse boxes with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine will be charged in Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday, prosecutors announced.

Christopher Kelly, 51, Salvatore Capece, 63, and MTA bus driver Robert Woolridge, 38, stand accused of dealing $150,000 in cocaine — which they hid in packages wrapped with Minnie Mouse wrapping paper — outside a Brooklyn nail salon, according to the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

Kelly, the manager of Lucy Lu’s salon, was seen picking up a Minnie Mouse-wrapped box outside his Mill Basin beauty shop at 5821 Avenue T on June 19, prosecutors said.

Investigators saw Kelly grab the box from Capece’s orange Dodge Challenger at about 5 p.m., then hand it over to Wooldridge who gave him a Burberry shopping bag in return, said prosecutors.

Hours later, the investigators burst into Kelly’s Avenue T home where they found Capece, the Burberry shopping bag stuffed with $74,300 in cash and a Minnie Mouse package with two kilos of cocaine, said prosecutors.

Woolridge was arrested weeks later, in The Bronx on June 28, after investigators searched his Throgs Neck home on East Tremont Avenue and found UPS bag with two kilos of cocaine worth about $75,000, scales and packaging materials, prosecutors said.

Kelly and Capece face charges of criminal sale of a controlled substance and all three have been charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminally using drug paraphernalia, prosecutors said.

“Brazen conduct, flashy cars and a soft spot for Minnie Mouse were the trademarks of the cocaine trafficking operation,” said New York City’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan. “I thank our law enforcement partners for their success in upending this organization.”

Photos courtesy of the New York City Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor