Two NYPD rookie cops struck gold while walking the beat Saturday when they seized over half a million dollars worth of cocaine in upper Manhattan. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL
The pair of eagle-eyed officers, both assigned to the 34th Precinct, were in uniform and on patrol at around 4 p.m. when their attention was drawn to a man at the corner of W. 190th St. and St. Nicholas Ave. in Fort George, a police source said.
He started getting nervous as the cops drew closer, and then dropped two duffel bags on the ground and walked away, the source said.
“They opened the bags and they see bricks of cocaine,” said the police source. “He goes to run and they grab him.”
Inside the bags, the officers found 29 kilos of cocaine, with a street value of $667,000, police said.
Jose Milan, 29, of the Bronx was arrested and charged with drug possession, police said.
Cops believe the newbies intercepted a drug drop, and Milan was serving as a courier dispatched to hand the stash off.
Narcotics investigators were still working yesterday to determine where the drugs had originated.
A drug bust of this magnitude is usually done by a task force as part of a longer-term operation.
In February, it took an undercover crew of Queens cops working in “Operation Stampede” to seize $107,000 worth of crack, coke and heroin in more than 200 buys over six months.
Authorities in August charged four men with selling cocaine, heroin, crack and guns in a Chelsea public-housing complex after a four-month investigation.
Last December, a Manhattan task force busted five Columbia University students for selling thousands of dollars worth of drugs to undercover officers.
Four people were arrested in November in a $6.5 million heroin bust at an apartment in Times Square.
Three were from upper Manhattan, and cops seized 13 kilograms of the drug.
