A man was arrested after federal agents caught him loading a van with more than $10 million worth of cocaine he stashed at a Queens self-storage facility, officials said Friday.
New Jersey resident Nelson Salcedo, 35, was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance after what NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch described as an “enormous takedown” on Wednesday.
“This seizure… represents the NYPD’s largest cocaine bust in at least a decade,” Tisch said.
The investigation that ultimately led to the Queens storage locker kicked off in Manhattan at the northern end of Central Park, where Salcedo was spotted dropping off cardboard boxes on the evening of Aug. 12, officials said.
Federal drug agents and officers with the NYPD’s 25th Precinct began tailing Salcedo’s vehicle, a Nissan van registered to an elevator repair company, which led them to a Public Storage self-storage facility on Northern Blvd. near 42nd Place in Long Island City.
It was there on Wednesday around 4:20 p.m. that law enforcement spotted Salcedo loading his van with cardboard boxes he pulled from the storage facility. Following a search, agents recovered 230 bricks containing white powder that later tested positive for cocaine, according to city Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan. In total, just shy of 590 pounds of coke was seized.
“This appears to be the largest single cache of cocaine my office has seized in 20 years,” Brennan said. “Thanks to our investigators and our law enforcement partners in this case, these drugs will never make it onto the streets of New York City.”
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said the seizure “strikes a massive blow to the narcotics supply chain in the tri-state area.”