DRUG KINGPIN BUSTED IN TIME SQUARE HOTEL WITH 36 KILOS OF COKE WORTH $1.3 MILLION!

A major drug kingpin, caught leaving a Times Square hotel with $1.3 million in cocaine packed in two suitcases, and 10 other narco traffickers were under arrest Friday following a 10-month wiretap probe, officials said.

Ricardo Gonzalez-Santiago was the prime target in the investigation into a crime ring responsible for distributing drugs across the city, officials said.

He was busted March 25 after flying into Kennedy Airport from Puerto Rico. Cops and agents who had followed him, pulled his car over a short distance from the Paramount Hotel on W. 46th St. and recovered the two suitcases - stuffed with 36 kilos - or 79 pounds of cocaine.

They said the blow, bundled into 18 packages, was covered in carbon paper to avoid scanner detection at airports.
Authorities said Gonzalez-Santiago, a lieutenant in a Puerto Rican drug cartel, had been on the run since eluding arrest by the feds two years ago in Philadelphia.

The investigation by the NYPD's Vice Squad and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration began with undercover buys of ketamine, ecstasy and oxycodone at East Village club Webster Hall, Hell's Kitchen lounge Pacha NYC and other Manhattan nightspots. Agents worked up the ladder into the drug ring, officials said.

Four ring members were also previously arrested, and five others rounded up on Friday.


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