Legos used to hide ‘rainbow fentanyl’ in Manhattan: DEA
It’s all child’s play to these drug thugs.
Narcotics peddlers in Manhattan stuffed a stash of rainbow-colored fentanyl pills in a box of “Classic Legos” — a childish attempt to smuggle the lethal dope into the city, the Drug Enforcement Administration said Tuesday.
A DEA Manhattan task force found 15,000 fentanyl pills packed in two black bags inside the box in the back of a rented car near Hudson Yards around 7 p.m. Wednesday, the agency said at a press conference.
Drug cartels have gotten increasingly creative to try to smuggle the popular but lethal narcotic in recent months.
A few weeks ago, the DEA seized 15,000 doses hidden in packages of Skittles and Nerds candy in Connecticut — with cops warning that children may be increasingly targeted by drug pushers.
Officials warned in August that cartels have been smuggling the rainbow-colored pills to make them look like candy — with lethal implications.
“Fentanyl is the most significant threat to our public health and our public safety,” DEA Special Agent Frank Tarentino said Tuesday. “It is poison. It is a parent’s worst nightmare, especially as Halloween approaches.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg. We have more seizures every day. In New York City there is a drug overdose every three hours. Nationally it’s every five minutes, 295 a day.”
Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan called the Sept. 28 bust “the first significant seizure of rainbow fentanyl pills.
“Dealers are looking to expand the market as they go for the pot of gold,” Brennan told reporters.
The DEA said the stash of drugs picked up in Manhattan, intended for distribution throughout the Big Apple, were marked with an “M” and a “30” in an attempt to resemble “30M” Oxycodone Hydrochloride pills.
Latesha Bush, a 48-year-old Trenton, NJ, resident was arrested inside the car in last week’s Manhattan bust.
The arrest was the latest in the DEA’s “One Pill Can Kill” campaign, which has taken an estimated 36 million doses of fentanyl off the nation’s streets — including about 500,000 dozes in New York alone, the agency said.
The drugs found in the Manhattan bust came from Mexico, authorities said.
Also last month, a Massachusetts man tried to smuggle fentanyl into New Hampshire by using an Uber driver, authorities said.