Brooklyn DA: 25 charged in connection with family-run heroin ring
NEW YORK -- Authorities say they have dismantled a family-run heroin ring that used cereal boxes to conceal the drugs, which were sold to distributors that included a Manhattan court employee and a Staten Island man studying to become a drug addiction counselor, reports CBS New York.
Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson announced Thursday that 25 people are charged in a 368-count indictment.
Thompson said the operation, which was run out of a Williamsburg apartment, netted about $1.5 million last year, reports the station.
The alleged ringleader, Josie Tavera, 25, got his family into the act, authorities said.
"His mother helped launder the proceeds that they gained from selling this heroin," Thompson told reporters, according to CBS New York. "And his sister, Sheila, helped bag and transport some of their heroin."
Tavera's brother and two cousins were also among those charged, says the station.
Thompson said the ring supplied more than a dozen distributors and the group sold about 25,000 packs of heroin each month.
According to the station, the heroin went by the street names "Knockout," "Killing Time," and "Scorpion," which had some serious effects -- "shock, constriction of the throat," Thompson said.
Sellers were caught on wire tap joking about the swollen lips and eyes users got from shooting Scorpion, the station reports.
"I don't think they're laughing now," the DA said. " They didn't know that we were listening."
According to the station, all of the defendants are charged with second-degree conspiracy, which carries a prison sentence of up to 25 years, adding that they are variously charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance, criminal possession of a controlled substance and money laundering.