Two major drug trafficking organizations have been busted for selling drugs on the street and running a 24-hour cocaine delivery service in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan over the past 14 months, law enforcement officials said.
District Attorney Cyrus Vance said on Thursday the groups worked between on the blocks bordered by Saint Nicholas and Audubon avenues, between West 171 and West 180 streets.
Some of the transactions were conducted during the day near P.S. 115 and Kipp Star Elementary School.
“If that doesn’t upset you — to be happening next to a public school for grade kids in the Washington Heights neighborhood — I don’t know what will,” Vance said.
School officials had to close off the entrance of one of the buildings because children were walking by an “open-air drug market,” he said.
The 35 defendants were indicted on a variety of drug-related charges, ranging from operating as a major trafficker to criminal possession of a controlled substance. They have not yet appeared in court and it is not clear whether they have pleaded guilty or not.
Constanza Gallardo 