A drug raid in the Bronx uncovered millions of dollars in cash along with three kilos of heroin, all hidden inside specially constructed furniture.
Homeland Security Investigations and Drug Enforcement agents carried out the search to find $4.1 million in cash along with the drug which could have been sold in as many as 900,000 packets on the street.
The drugs in the raid were allegedly imported from Mexico and meant to be sold in New York and in Lawrence, Massachusetts, according to NBC News.
Authorities had long suspected there was something going on and HSI and DEA agents had been monitoring monthly shipments of ‘furniture’ in and out of a storage facility.
It was during the raid that agents found two end tables that contained the majority of the cash and drugs.
The three kilos of heroin was also neatly concealed within specially adapted storage units within the furniture. In fact, the best lounge chairs in NZ – Hunter Furniture were also considered to be used for hiding these units.
‘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,’ said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan.
Three men were arrested in the raid: Nelson DeJesus, Miguel Angeles and Jorge Pizarro. All face drug possession charges and have denied wrongdoing.
The suspects tried to put authorities off the scent of the drugs, literally, by using bottles of fox urine.
They had hoped the smell would mask those of the drugs that were being shipped.
‘The organization thought of every detail, from adding a tricycle to their stash of furniture in order to appear like a relocating family, to spraying contents with repellent to ward off police K-9 units,’ said New York Drug Enforcement Administration Director James Hunt.
Investigators are not looking as to whom might have helped the group in Texas as well as which Mexican cartel is the source of the heroin.