Turns Out Very Rich People in Brooklyn Use Lots of Cocaine
Following a year-long investigation, a major drug bust occurred this weekend, and NY1 reports that four alleged dealers were charged with over “100 counts of running a major drug trafficking operation in Brooklyn.” The alleged drug ring was closely followed as it made countless cocaine deliveries (primarily, it seems, in a Toyota Prius) to neighborhoods like Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Downtown Brooklyn—just blocks from the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, who describes the cocaine operation as “a disgrace.”
Thompson spoke with NY1 and described the drug ring’s operations: “These drug dealers would drive up, meet [customers] in Downtown Brooklyn within the shadows of even our courts here and sell them cocaine—powdered cocaine, crack cocaine.”
Which, yeah, that sounds about right when it comes to buying cocaine from a dealer. Nothing to see here, really, right? Well, no! Because apparently there is a lesson to learn from this environmentally conscious coke-dealing ring, a lesson that goes beyond the fact that this drug ring was a real family operation, one which involved a husband and wife, and which threatens to leave their three children with two parents in prison. And what’s that lesson? It’s that not only poor people do drugs. I know. I’m shocked too.
As Thompson explains to NY1, the fact is that these drug dealers were “driving and meeting their customers in a Toyota Prius. And what it is shows is that drug dealing is not limited to one community or just a few.”
Uh, no kidding! The use of drugs in privileged communities is pretty well-documented and historically recognized, making the fact that drug dealing exists in Brooklyn’s most elite neighborhoods about as surprising as the fact that, as Thompson says, “this particular cocaine delivery ring had many repeat customers.” Again: No kidding! People who had an easy way to get something they really want conveniently delivered right to their apartments decided to have it delivered again the same way? Has Thompson never heard of Seamless? This is how this city works now!
What is different about this, though, is that it is rare to hear about big drug busts in these areas, even though it is an established fact that drug use is most definitely happening there. (No, but really: What else is there to do if you live in one of those huge glass towers in DoBro other than drugging yourself into oblivion? I don’t know!) All of which is why it still feels really unseemly that the only arrests made in this drug-dealing bust were of the dealers themselves, not the literally hundreds of wealthy customers that were using the drug-delivery operation. Thompson claims that the operation is still ongoing into all the customers, so who knows? Maybe it will be any day now before we hear about the charges brought against all the wealthy people who bought and used all the coke that Francisco Frias, his cousin Mario Frias, Mario’s wife Victoria Rivera and Rafael Velasquez are currently facing up to fifteen years in jail for selling.
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