HIP-HOP DRUG BUST
Rapped about laundering dope money, nabbed as dealer
A Long Island rapper who rhymed about laundering drug money got a taste of his own medicine after being busted for running a crosscountry cocaine and fentanyl distribution ring, officials said Saturday.
Jamel Brown — who performs as Broke Boy Lord — his brother Randolph Brown and a friend, Troy Williams, who works as a Queens public school custodian, were all arrested for peddling cocaine and fentanyl from California to New York, officials said.
The three were among eight suspects netted in the nearly two-year investigation into the drug distribution ring, in which drugs were sold in a handful of Queens neighborhoods, officials said.
The other five suspects were local street sellers who hawked the drugs that Jamel Brown, his brother and Williams supplied, officials said.
The drug ring was cracked after more than two dozen undercover drug buys, recorded conversations between Jamel and Randolph Brown and a few botched deliveries made by the rapper, who used UPS and the U.S. Postal Service to ship more than $120,000 in cocaine and fentanyl from California to his home and other addresses on Long Island, officials said.
On two occasions, drug shipments were intercepted by UPS and the Postal Service, which found the drugs as well as a tracker that Brown had put inside to keep tabs on the shipment.
Investigators also tapped phones belonging to the rapper and his sibling, who were overheard talking about how the shipments were lost and how they were going to California to buy more drugs.
When one package of drugs was intercepted by U.S. postal inspectors on Dec. 11, Brown was overheard on wiretaps saying their shipment “took a hit.”
The brothers talked in code in their conversations, using “the regulars” for cocaine and “the ugly” for fentanyl, authorities said.
The drugs would then be given to Williams, who would dole them out to the low-level street dealers.
A search warrant of the seized package revealed a kilogram of cocaine and approximately 40 grams of fentanyl, authorities said. Investigators searching the rapper’s home found more drugs, a handgun, packaging material and $10,000 in cash.
Williams had a kilogram of fentanyl hidden inside his black Mercedes-Benz when investigators searched it outside Intermediate School 59 in Springfield Gardens, officials said. Two phones linked to the wiretap were also found in his pocket, officials said.
The brothers were arrested Jan. 29. Williams was grabbed the next day as he left work. All three were charged with drug possession and conspiracy, and drug trafficking, officials said. All three are out on bail, officials said.
Their street sellers were arrested Thursday and charged with drug possession with intent to sell.
“The crimes charged expose the inner workings of an organization set up to distribute deadly drugs in New York City and Long Island, and how a school custodian with a side job as a high-level distributor brazenly went to work with a kilogram of fentanyl concealed in his Mercedes,” Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said.
Jamel Brown’s latest video, “Oh I Heard,” which shows him in a laundromat washing drug money, premiered on YouTube last summer with rapper Jadakiss and has more than 215,000 views.