United States of America authorities have arrested three drug dealers accused of smuggling heroin in pieces of household furniture, officials said Tuesday.
Cops grabbed Jorge Pizarro, 41, Nelson DeJesus, 40, and Miguel Angeles, 27, saying they tried to make an end-run around police by secreting more than six pounds of heroin in high-quality wooden end tables they transported from Texas and kept in a Bronx storage unit, officials said.
The drugs were stashed in compartments in the tables, officials said.
More than $4.1 million in $20s, $50s, and $100s was also found, city Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said.
“This investigation demonstrates how lucrative and highly organized the lethal narcotics trade has become,” Brennan said. “The potential toll on human lives represented by this amount of drug money, carefully packaged and hidden in hydraulic compartments for interstate traffickers, cannot be measured.”
Drug investigators from the Special Narcotics Prosecutors office, the Drug Enforcement Agency and Homeland Security arrested Pizarro and his two cohorts Saturday night as they unloaded the heavy furniture from a unit they rented at Secure Self Storage on Zerega Ave. near Bruckner Blvd. in Unionport.
Cops cuffed the trio after they loaded the furniture onto a U-Haul truck, officials said. They also had a Dodge Caravan with them.
On Monday, investigators executed search warrants on the two vehicles, finding the furniture and drugs in the U-Haul, officials said.
Cops also found a secret compartment in the Caravan and a bottle of fox urine — marked deer hunters grade, which is known to be used by traffickers to cover the smell of narcotics, police said.
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