Drug Trafficker From Long Island Convicted

Last week, a Long Island man was convicted in federal court of trafficking drugs in Brooklyn, and is now facing a long prison sentence.

Rafael Antonio Fabian, 43, of Baldwin, was convicted of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute narcotics, specifically crack cocaine. When he is sentenced, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, and could face up to life in prison.

“With today’s verdict and the previous guilty pleas of his co-conspirators, Fabian’s poison-pushing drug trafficking operation has been dismantled,” said United States Attorney Richard Donoghue. “Together with our law enforcement partners, this Office will be unrelenting in pursuing networks like Fabian’s that imperil our communities.”

Between January 2014 and March 2016, Fabian conspired with others to supply drugs to dealers in the Sunset Park and Bay Ridge neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Fabian gave his co-conspirators Blackberry phones that he thought were secure because the messages were encrypted.

Investigators seized narcotics, ledgers with the names of customers and transactions, more than 50 pages of messages from the phones of co-conspirators and more detailing the drug trafficking activity.

Fabian and his co-conspirators had a stash apartment in Sunset Park, prosecutors said, and had a crew of runners to deliver the drugs. When making deliveries himself, Fabian drove several cars, including an Audi sedan that had a secret compartment in the glove box to hide drugs.