If you're running a drug ring in your apartment, one of the problems you run into is where to store your drugs. Discreetly. For some enterprising dealers in Washington Heights, it involved some DIY home reno work: They decided to create "traps"—aka secret compartments—all over two apartments. For one, they removed four bathroom tiles to hide 17 pounds of crystal meth and then, in another apartment's kitchen, they stashed 24 pounds of heroin in a cabinet trap.
The authorities, including NYC Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, and DEA Acting Special Agent In Charge James Hunt, announced the arrests of Pablo Paulino, Pedro Abreu and Janeison Garcia, who are all charged with drug possession. The trio were busted on Monday, after agents saw them enter and leave 111 Wadsworth Avenue "repeatedly" and "carrying bags." And then they looked in their apartments.
In apartment 21E, there was a safe in the bedroom that had $120,000 cash, plus the bathroom "trap" with 17 pounds of crystal meth as well as shoe soles, which are used to conceal drugs during trafficking. The authorities also found 100 grams of heroin in a jacket that was in a closet, plus burners, drug ledgers and an electrical bill for apartment 10E.
When they got to apartment 10E (after they got a search warrant), investigators encountered a "sophisticated counter surveillance system" which included pinhole cameras in the front door's frame; footage of the hallway was displayed on a monitor in the apartment's hallway and also recorded to a DVR. Inside the apartment, they found the 24 pounds of heroin bricks in a kitchen cabinet trap, which was only accessible by a sliding panel hidden behind the shelves; 11 pounds of heroin in between the mattress and box spring in the bedroom; 2 pounds of heroin in a TV stand; 5 pounds of heroin in a hidden bathroom compartment; and packaging materials and presses to make heroin bricks.
All together, $12 million in heroin and $500,000 in meth was seized. The authorities believe that the traffickers picked Washington Heights as a location because it's easy to access Long Island and points outside the city via the George Washington Bridge, Interstate 95 and the RFK Triborough Bridge. Abreu and Paulino are being held without bail while Garcia's bail was set at $250,000.
