Mamma Mia!
Narcotics cops have seized 28 pounds of dope from a Theater District heroin mill — a stash worth a Wicked $6.5 million.
The drugs were found at 417 W. 43rd St. inside a Next to Normal-seeming ground-floor duplex just two blocks from Times Square, officials said.
Four alleged American Idiots were busted for possessing the piles of dope, said the city’s special narcotics prosecutor, Bridget Brennan.
“If our investigators were surprised, you can only imagine the shock of neighbors, commuters and theatergoers,” Brennan said.
The building’s residents include elderly folks and parents with young children — all of them upset by their Brief Encounter with alleged drug kingpins.
“I noticed something was funny,” said neighbor Graciella Lopez, 55, noting that the first thing the new residents did after moving in last week was put black sheets over the windows.
Cops moved in on the operation Wednesday afternoon after seeing Gregorio Antonio Conce, 47, of The Bronx, leave the building holding a large garbage bag they said was stuffed with damaged glassine envelopes and other packaging materials.
Conce allegedly threw the bag in a black BMW and attempted to drive off as officers surrounded his car. But his escape was blocked by traffic at the corner of 43rd Street and 10th Avenue.
“He screeched out of here,” said one eyewitness, who asked not to be identified.
“As soon as he pulled out, cops jumped out of their cars and yelled for him to stop . . . Then they all took off. They were flying, and cops pulled in front of them [at the corner] and stopped them. It was something straight out of a cop movie.”
When more cops used a battering ram to break down the door to the $3,000-a-month apartment, workers Johnny Herredia, 51, Juan Hernandez, 48, and Luz Liriano, 35, tried, and failed, to flee, prosecutors said. Left behind were at least 250,000 glassine bags of dope wrapped in scraps of porn-magazine paper. Each bag retails for at least $10 on the street, Brennan said.
“Get on the floor, scumbag! Or you are gonna get shot!” another resident recalled cops shouting as they subdued one of the alleged workers.
Much of the heroin was in the kitchen, sitting loose in piles on top of a couple of dinner tables. Cops also found $60,000 in cash, prosecutors said.
All four suspects were arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court last night on charges of criminal possession of a controlled substance and held without bail.
The alleged 6.5 Million Dollar Quartet includes two alleged druggies who happen to live uptown — In the Heights.