Washington Heights Drug Bust: 'Heroin Mill' Taken Down On Block Of Elementary School

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Three men are facing charges for running an alleged heroin mill on the same block as a public elementary school in Washington Heights, city prosecutors announced Friday.

Andres Cordero, 26, Jose Luis Lugo, 29, and Anaury Burgos, 26, were hit with multiple counts of "criminal possession of a controlled substance" after their operation was taken down Thursday night, law enforcement officials said. The three men were caught carrying approximately 100 grams of heroin out of a building across the street from PS 115 on West 177th Street, between Audubon and Saint Nicholas avenues, according to New York City’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

Investigators later determined the men had been adding the heroin to fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic opioid, and packaging the drug combo in "glassine envelopes."

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"Given its lethal potential, it is especially frightening to find a fentanyl packaging operation in an apartment building directly across from an elementary school," Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan said in a statement Friday.

Federal DEA agents watched as Cordero and Lugo left their apartment building at 575 West 177th Street around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, officials said, and approached a livery cab waiting to pick them up in front of the building. When agents apprehended the men at the scene, they found a plastic bag wrapped in tape and containing 100 grams of heroin, officials said.

Then, in a followup raid of their apartment, agents found a suspicious gray suitcase and red duffle bag in a bedroom closet.

The duffle ended up containing 5,000 prepackaged glassines of heroin-laced fentanyl and three clear plastic bags with a tan powdery substance inside, prosecutors said. In total, these drugs allegedly weighed between one-and-a-half to three kilograms.

And inside the suitcase was a setup officials described as a mobile drug mill: ink pads, ink refills, scotch tape, grinders, sifters and stamps used to label drug glassines. The stamps, pictured below, had names like "Daily News," "Godzilla," "Planet of the Apes," "Empire," "Stink Face," "Spiderman," "Panda" and "Showtime."

"With their traveling heroin mill concealed in a suitcase, this organization had the capability to move quickly to other strategic locations in the city," DEA Special Agent in Charge James J. Hunt said in a statement Friday. "In this case, law enforcement was able to shut down their operation which had set up shop directly across from PS 115."

The three men who were arrested were all listed as residents of the same West 177th Street apartment. Cops said they took Burgos into custody during their raid Thursday night, as he was home at the time.

Photos courtesy New York City’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor