snpseal

Office of the
Special Narcotics Prosecutor
for the City of New York

Bridget G. Brennan, Special Narcotics Prosecutor 		80 CENTRE STREET, SIXTH FLOOR
NEW YORK, NY 10013
212-815-0400, GEN.
212-815-0440, FAX

Press Release
Monday, January 22, 2007
Magda Gandasegui, Director of Public Information
mgandasegui@specnarc.org
(212) 815-0525

Potholes & heroin

City repairman is caught up in drug-ring smackdown

BY ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF

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Ricardo Calderon

 

A city pothole repairman lived a secret life as a drug courier, selling high-quality heroin smuggled into the city by a Colombian crew.

 

Ricardo Calderon, a city Department of Transportation employee, was paid to fill potholes and pave streets in Queens. But cops arrested him, months after watching him pick up dirty drug money - $57,000 in cash - while on the job, authorities told the Daily News.

 

Federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents, NYPD detectives and state police dismantled the final pieces of the drug cartel that had employed him during a series of raids last week.

 

"You can't make this stuff up," said New York City narcotics prosecutor Bridget Brennan. "Imagine the surprise of agents conducting surveillance when a DOT truck pulls up and a worker gets out to pick up a bag of cash. ... You never know when an investigation may lead you to the highest level of an international distribution network."

 

Calderon, a Colombian native, played a crucial role in trafficking heroin from Pereira, Colombia, to drug distributors in the city, authorities said. He delivered heroin that had been smuggled into the U.S. aboard cruise ships to three suppliers - Norbero Yepes, Gustavo Cardona and Ruben Acosta - in the Bronx, authorities said.

 

The men allegedly ran the Moacho-Mare drug ring in Woodlawn, selling the smack to dealers in New York, several other Northeast cities and as far west as Ohio.

Before the sting operation, Calderon was caught on cell phone wiretaps setting up the drug deal while he and other DOT workers were fixing streets in Queens.

"I'm working. I'm in Maspeth. Call me, and I'll tell you at what address we'll meet," Calderon told Yepes on the wiretaps, authorities said.

 

On June 16, 2004, Calderon had his street repair crew drive him to Joey's Pizza on Grand Ave. in Maspeth.

 

He jumped off the truck and, wearing his yellow Local 983 T-shirt, sauntered into the pizza parlor. Yepes came out a few minutes later, got into a car parked nearby and blew his horn several times to signal Calderon to come to the car, authorities said.

Calderon trotted over and took a plastic bag stuffed with bundles of cash out of Yepes' trunk. The money was advance payment for a kilo of high-quality heroin, authorities said.

 

Yepes had told Calderon to bring the heroin to the pizza parlor, but the pothole man balked at carrying drugs in the city truck. Calderon was heard on wiretaps setting up another meeting to deliver the drugs, authorities said.

 

Agents kept Calderon under surveillance for the next seven months as they built their case and traced his supply lines to Colombia. He was arrested on Feb. 14, 2005.

Five months later, he was fired from the DOT - not because of the drug allegations but because he had lost his license and couldn't drive a truck anymore, authorities said.

 

Calderon and his relatives own five apartments in Flushing, Jackson Heights and Woodside, as well as a vacant lot in Rockaway, law enforcement sources said.

He also bought a Washington condo from former city DOT Commissioner Christopher Lynn for $60,000, Lynn confirmed. The property, sold in January 2005, has a value of about $230,000.

 

"His sister was an engineer at DOT and was a dear friend of mine. If you look at his status when he bought it, he wasn't accused of doing so much as throwing a gum wrapper on the ground," said Lynn, who headed the DOT from 1996-97.

 

Calderon was convicted of drug crimes and sentenced last month to nine years in prison. He was one of 89 people, in the United States and Colombia, arrested during the three-year investigation, authorities said.

 

The Colombian smugglers stashed the heroin in double-sided suitcases and inside small packets sewn into running shorts, and then boarded cruise ships bound for Florida.

 

Other drug couriers swallowed balloons filled with heroin, carrying a pound or more of smack inside their lower intestines.

 

Authorities said Acosta, 29, was caught on wiretaps joking with Yepes about how they might have to cut open the drug couriers if any of them had trouble "excreting" the heroin pellets.

 

Acosta's suggestion, according to authorities who heard the wiretap: Go to Home Depot and buy a saw.

Originally published on January 21, 2007