According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), traffickers are using social networks and hidden compartments in vehicles to introduce drugs and weapons in and around New York City.
Federal agents gave Pix11 access to vehicles seized during raids. There they found weapons, money and drugs such as fentanyl stored in hidden compartments called “traps” that they say are a popular method among traffickers.
Tim Foley, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the New Division The DEA’s York explained that the traps are complicated and are generally only found after using a K-9 unit (dogs) or executing a search warrant.
Sales and seizures of the deadly fentanyl are at an all-time high in all five boroughs. Agents said they have seen a 92% increase in seizures this January compared to the same month in 2021. And of all recent seizures in the country, 20% were in New York State .
Unsurprisingly, overdose deaths in New York City have increased 36%, due to economic and general stress related to the pandemic, in addition to a “disruption” in addiction treatment due to confinement, according to federal data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) presented in October.
The agents detailed that New Yorkers are using social networks to buy weapons and drugs, and with emojis they describe what is being bought and sold. In combat, DEA troops partner with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.
This week “brilliant” college student Shakor Rodríguez (23), a Bronx native (NYC), was accused of trafficking weapons and ammunition, including selling to an undercover police officer. According to the prosecution, he brought them from Tennessee, hiding them in canvas bags and, sometimes, transporting them by bus.
In the midst of the mourning that the NYPD is experiencing for the two Hispanic police officers murdered in Harlem, where a Glock pistol apparently acquired in Baltimore was used, the authorities are creating several fronts to limit the roads through which which bring illegal weapons into the state of NY, which is why the newly created Interstate Task Force Against Violence met for the first time on Wednesday.
At the close of 609 Kings County (Brooklyn) accumulated almost a third of the victims of shootings in the city with 609 cases, followed by The Bronx (609), Manhattan (303), Queens (288) and Staten Island (92). The escalating shootings in New York City have already left at least 22 people dead in the little that goes of the 2021.