In many ways, the reputed drug dealers on Grandview Place were good neighbors. Their two-story, red-brick home in the New York City suburb of Fort Lee, New Jersey. The Fort Lee operation represented the new, more serene face of the ever-thriving heroin trade in the New York City area, the drug’s national epicenter. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL
The only sign that something was amiss was the rented van that would disappear into a lower-level garage each day. The driver’s job: To deliver immigrant workers from the inner city to package heroin in thousands-upon-thousands of glassine envelopes stamped with catchy logos like “LeBron James” and “Roger Dat.”
The Fort Lee operation represented the new, more serene face of the ever-thriving heroin trade in the New York City area, the drug’s national epicenter, according to the Manhattan-based narcotics investigators who shut it down.
“It can still be a violent, dirty business, but it’s changed,” said Bill Cook, a veteran investigator with the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for New York City.
Absent are scenes out of films like “American Gangster,” with kingpins flaunting their wealth, settling turf wars with brazen gunplay and serving a clientele of strung-out junkies queuing up to buy low-grade product.
MSNBC