A dozen hooligans with lengthy rap sheets terrorized an East Harlem NYCHA complex for three years, brazenly hawking deadly drugs such as fentanyl and the even-more-powerful nitazene in plain view, federal authorities alleged Wednesday.
The feds busted the open-air drug market in the James Weldon Johnson Houses, arresting eight of the alleged pushers — part of a broader effort by the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office to target crime in city housing projects.
“The conduct of this 12-man crew created an environment of fear for many of the Johnson House residents,” said Jay Clayton, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a news conference hours after the busts.
Feds say that the hooligans had been charged with hawking deadly drugs, including fentanyl and nitazene. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post
More than a dozen individuals with lengthy rap sheets have been terrorizing the James Weldon Johnson Houses in East Harlem for over three years. Matthew McDermott
Clayton said the federal charges likely will keep the accused dealers off the streets longer than if the case was pursued by city and state authorities – a sly backhand at New York’s criminal justice system.
“If our federal charges are proven, this crew should be off the streets for a long time,” he said.
The crew — including three suspects who remained on the loose and one already in prison — all face drug conspiracy and firearms charges in a federal indictment, federal prosecutors said.
The charges followed an extensive undercover sting by the NYPD that caught roughly 45 deals of crack, fentanyl and other narcotics on video, according to court documents.
The alleged dealers with street names such as “Skii Dotty” and “Baby Wuu” used the NYCHA project’s lobby as their home base, but spread their deals across the complex — even into a children’s playground, court papers allege.
US Attorney for SDNY Jay Clayton said the crew’s conduct created an environment of fear. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post
The crew sold cocaine, crack, heroin and fentanyl — with hints their wares verged into increasingly dangerous drugs, according to court documents.
One suspect, Caesar Hernandez, 34, twice sold drugs that turned out to be a nitazene — a group synthetic opioids up to 43 times more powerful than fentanyl, the feds alleged.
Many suspects already had long criminal records, including 19-year-old Jaffari Hopwah, who has been arrested as many years he has been alive, the documents state.
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Hopwah, who is one of the suspects still in the wind, exchanged gunfire with his Jefferson Houses during two shooting that unfolded with weeks of each other in 2023, the papers allege.
The gang’s shady shenanigans extended into a “senseless back and forth” beef that involved shooting rap videos talking smack about the neighboring Thomas Jefferson Houses, the filings state.
“Members of each group would then film themselves walking through (or ‘spinning’) the other’s complex until they found each other and exchanged gunfire in broad daylight, in populated residential areas,” the papers state.