Dealers dug bug

Coke bust finds jacked-up pandemic prices

A band of greedy drug traffickers took advantage of a cocaine shortage during the coronavirus pandemic to mark up their product to a desperate Brooklyn clientele, prosecutors said Monday.

Police and prosecutors announced they’d busted the ring’s kingpin and nine other loosely connected suspects, recovering two guns, roughly a kilo of coke and nearly $200,000 in cash.

Alleged kingpin Miguel Rivera, 42, and his partner, Alberto Bota, paid up to $50,000 per kilo — about 30% to 50% higher than prepandemic prices — then jacked up the price another 3% to 5%, prosecutors said. On occasion, they’d sell the drugs the same day they bought it, prosecutors said.

“For them, the crisis provided an opportunity to charge some of the highest prices for cocaine seen in New York City in recent years,” Special Narcotics

Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan said.

Police learned about the drug operation after a nonfatal drug overdose in the Farragut Houses in Brooklyn, and started tapping phone lines in February. That led them to Rivera, who by May cops realized was operating as a major drug trafficker, prosecutors said.

Rivera, a Queens resident, did most of his business in Park Slope, Gowanus and Sunset Park, Brennan’s office said, though he bought some of his product from a Ridgewood-based supplier, Angel Rodriguez, 42.

Police started dismantling the drug ring July 8 after Bota set up a $41,000 deal for a kilo of cocaine from another Brooklyn supplier, Jose Lopez Santos, 42. He told Rivera, who reached out to a Staten Island street dealer and said he’d soon have drugs for sale, prosecutors said.

Bota and Lopez Santos met in Bota’s Brooklyn home, and when Lopez Santos left, police pulled him over and found $41,000 cash in his car, prosecutors said. Police stopped Rivera next, discovering nearly 800 grams of cocaine in the trunk and center console, prosecutors said.

Cops arrested Bota that night, and the next day, they found about 150 grams of cocaine, some heroin, a scale and $4,000 cash in his car, authorities said.

More raids followed. Police found two guns, a bulletproof vest and $60,000 in sealed, labeled bags in a Sunset Park storage unit connected to Rivera, and another $83,300 cash from his Queens home, prosecutors said.

Rivera has been indicted as a major trafficker under the state’s kingpin law, and could face life in prison.

The other suspects were hit with a variety of drugdealing and conspiracy charges.

CITY OF NEW YORK SPECIAL NARCOTICS PROSECUTOR Cops found bags of cocaine and stacks of cash in cars (below) of several members of a Brooklyn drug ring they busted, and guns and more cash were found in a storage locker.