Cocaine Ring Charged Lock-Down Premium To Park Slope Users: Feds

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A drug ring that sold massive amounts of cocaine at inflated "pandemic prices" to locked-down Brooklynites has been busted after a year-long investigation, prosecutors announced Monday.

Prosecutors unveiled charges Monday against 10 people connected to the lucrative narcotics business, which sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drugs in Park Slope, Gowanus and Sunset Park during a cocaine shortage at the height of the coronavirus crisis.

“For them, the crisis provided an opportunity to charge some of the highest prices for cocaine seen in New York City in recent years,” Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan said. “The indictment reveals a singular focus on enhancing profits, draining hundreds of thousands of dollars from Brooklyn neighborhoods while the city was in COVID-19 lockdown.”

At the head of the drug distribution network was kingpin Miguel Rivera, who brought in $250,000 worth of cocaine in just two months earlier this summer, according to prosecutors.

Investigators caught onto Rivera and his associates after looking into an overdose at the Farragut Houses in August 2019. The overdose was linked to a drug ring that sold narcotics to undercover officers more than 20 times near the Barclays Center or Farragut Houses, prosecutors said.

Soon, the investigators began wiretapping the suspects and zeroed in on Rivera as the ring's supplier.

Rivera would meet up with another man, Alberto Bota, to resell the cocaine throughout Park Slope and Gowanus, prosecutors said. He also bought cocaine from a man in Queens named Angel Rodriguez and Jose Lopez Santos, who also lived in Brooklyn, prosecutors said.

The cocaine, which cost up to $50,000 for a kilogram, was a 30 to 50 percent mark-up of typical drug prices, prosecutors said.

Authorities arrested Rivera and Bota in July after learning they were planning to buy $41,000 worth of cocaine from Santos, according to prosecutors.

Cops stopped each of the three men after watching them coming and going from Bota's home on Union Street, prosectors said.

They found $41,000 cash in Santos' car, 799 grams of cocaine in Rivera's trunk and, the next day, 150 grams of cocaine, heroin and $4,000 in Bota's car, according to prosecutors.

Rivera also had a storage unit in Sunset Park where investigators would later find two guns, a bulletproof vest and $60,000 cash. Another $83,300 was found at his apartment in Queens, prosecutors said.

Rivera, 42, faces 17 charges including "operating as a major drug trafficker." Bota, Santos, Rodriguez and six other men previously arraigned each face at least one criminal sale of a controlled substance charge, among others.

"This long-term investigation helped to dismantle an alleged drug network that continued to operate and benefit during the height of the pandemic, distributing large amounts of cocaine through several Brooklyn communities," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said.