4 Tons Of Coke Worth $120M Hidden In Chairs, Some Sent To Yonkers

YONKERS, NY — A clever scheme to smuggle drugs into the Hudson Valley in furniture has ended with a guilty verdict following a federal trial.

Abel Montilla has been convicted for his participation in a long-running cocaine-trafficking scheme between 2018 and 2021, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY Damian Williams announced. The jury convicted Montilla following a one-week federal trial.

Sentencing of Montilla is scheduled for March 22.

"The unanimous jury verdict holds Abel Montilla accountable for his role in a widespread cocaine trafficking organization that flooded the streets with four tons of cocaine," Williams said. "Montilla was a coordinator of the drug trafficking organization who traveled around the country to manage the delivery of the organization’s cocaine-filled furniture. He now faces the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence for his crime."

According to court documents, between 2018 and 2021, Montilla was a member of a drug-trafficking organization that engaged in a scheme involving the concealment of cocaine inside custom-built furniture. Between September 2018 and June 2019, the criminal organization sent around 27 shipments of cargo from Puerto Rico to the continental U.S. The cocaine was concealed in over 70 custom cube-shaped coffee tables or other types of furniture.

The organization falsely represented that the cargo contained furniture, but that furniture in fact concealed hundred-kilogram quantities of cocaine. In total, the trafficking organization shipped approximately 4,000 kilograms of cocaine, worth at least $120,000,000 on the street.

Eight of the organization’s shipments were sent to addresses in Yonkers and the Bronx. Those eight shipments contained a total of approximately 775 kilograms (1,704 pounds) of cocaine.

Montilla was a Massachusetts-based coordinator of cocaine shipments who managed the recipients of the organization’s deliveries of cocaine shipments and the distribution of the cocaine concealed inside the furniture, including in the Hudson Valley. At times, Montilla drove straight through the night from Massachusetts to Florida to be present for a cocaine delivery, then flew or drove back to Massachusetts to handle additional cocaine deliveries there.

In total, Montilla coordinated at least a dozen drug shipments in Massachusetts and Florida, and at least twelve of the 27 shipments were sent to addresses affiliated with Montilla.

Montilla, 49, of Springfield, Massachusetts, was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute narcotics, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in prison.

Williams praised the investigative work of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the United States Postal Inspection Service in this investigation.

The prosecution is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (“OCDETF”) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found here.