BOTH RENT AND DRUG CONTROL
UWS apt.'s '$1M/mo. in coke'
Getting a rent-controlled apartment near the American Museum of Natural History wasn’t enough of a windfall for one man — he also turned it into a base for a $1.2 million-a-month drug operation, officials said.
Gerardo Gonzalez earned the title “Cocaine King of the Upper West Side” by peddling large amounts of powder from his late mom’s rent-stabilized Columbus Avenue home, authorities said Thursday.
Gonzalez, 43, who took over the pad in August 2017 after the death of Minerva Martinez, moved as much as 10 kilos of coke per week at $30,000 a kilo, according to city Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan.
Prosecutors on Thursday re- vealed the charges against Gonzalez and some alleged accomplices, including three dealers, a supplier, and a money launderer, ahead of Gonzalez’s appearance in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“It breaks my heart because he is such a nice kid,” said one neighbor, who called Gonzalez a doting son. “Gerry did everything for her up until the end.”
Before taking over his mom’s low-cost pad at Columbus Avenue and West 83rd Street, Gonzalez had been living in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. In addition to being close to major tourist attractions, the apartment was across the street from a public school.
Almost as quickly as he settled in, investigators from agencies including the DEA and State Police took notice of his activities and started keeping tabs on Gonzalez, whose record includes a 2001 coke-peddling bust in Virginia, sources said.
Agents witnessed multiple handoffs on the street corner and caught Gonzalez on wiretap bragging about clearing more than $1 million in sales, prosectors said.
Investigators watched as Gonzalez met alleged money launderer Xiongbin Zhao, 24, outside a Brooklyn home on 76th Street in Dyker Heights to transfer a large sum of drug money — at least the second such meeting where $350,000 changed hands, authorities said.
As Zhao drove away, investigators pulled him over and seized a duffel bag stuffed with $180,000 in cash from the car.
A March 6 raid of the Columbus Avenue apartment revealed something closer to a scene from “Scarface” than a ritzy Upper West Side flat.
Agents seized more than two kilos of coke — imprinted with a crown (above) — along with 30 grams of heroin cut with meth and horse tranquilizer, $60,000 in cash and a money counter, it’s alleged.
“As this case demonstrates, no neighborhood is too sedate for drug traffickers,” said Brennan.
Gonzalez faces charges including conspiracy, criminal possession of a controlled substance and money laundering.