The alleged ringleader of a sizable cocaine and heroin ring that dealt drugs in three boroughs and Connecticut was arrested this morning after a year-long investigation that included wiretaps and an undercover agent.
DEA agents detained Carlos Medina, 59, in his Yonkers home this morning and confiscated $40,000 in cash as well as a drug ledger. According to a release from the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office, Medina and ten other co-conspirators dealt heroin and cocaine in Queens, Manhattan, and Bronx, and maintained stash locations in Kips Bay and Throgs Neck.
“A search of the stash house at 228 Revere Ave. in the Bronx this morning yielded two loaded .38 caliber revolvers, 3 kilograms of cocaine (nearly 7 lbs.) and a half-kilogram of heroin (more than 1 lb.). One of the revolvers, the heroin and 2 1/2 kilograms of cocaine were found inside a hidden trap in a Jacuzzi. The remaining half-kilogram of cocaine was near a pigeon coop on the roof, hidden amidst pigeon supplies. The second revolver was found in a nightstand in the bedroom.”
Medina, the owner of Excellent Watches & Jewelry on West 47th Street, allegedly obtained some of his product from Puerto Rico, and made hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of transactions over the course of a year.
The indictment against Medina describes how he would intimidate those who owed him money – on December 23, 2013, Medina ordered co-conspirator David Rivera to threaten and otherwise intimidate another individual in Connecticut who owed him $19,000 for narcotics. In a recorded phone conversation quoted in the indictment, Medina asks Rivera whether the individual who owed the money has been told “that he was playing with fire.” Medina orders Rivera to “go to this person’s house, his girl’s house and his aunt’s house, and tell them that if this person doesn’t pay he’s going to have problems,” the indictment states.
The indictment also describes how Medina impressed the undercover into dealing drugs for him:
“In addition to the counts in the indictment, MEDINA faces charges related to a sale to the undercover on Tuesday, January 14. The undercover officer once again met with MEDINA in the Bronx and paid $5,000 for cocaine he had received on consignment. MEDINA indicated he would provide the undercover heroin as well. MEDINA went to the stash house and returned with 200 grams of loose heroin and an additional 35 bundles of packaged heroin, which he gave to the undercover. MEDINA informed the undercover that he had to pay $12,000 for the heroin and that they could split the profits, which was estimated at $18,000 each. MEDINA instructed the undercover that in effect the undercover now worked for MEDINA.”
Medina faces a minimum of 15 years in prison and as much as 30 years if convicted of first degree sale of a controlled substance.
