FACTORY-LIKE MILLS FEED RAVENOUS NEW YORK CITY HEROIN MARKET

NEW YORK (AP) -- In many ways, the reputed drug dealers on Grandview
Place were good neighbors.

Their two-story, red-brick home in the New York City suburb of Fort
Lee, N.J., looked perfectly ordinary with its white trim, gable porch
and manicured shrubbery. Neither noise nor sketchy visitors were an
issue, authorities say.

The only sign that something was amiss was the rented van that would
disappear into a lower-level garage each day. The driver's job: To
deliver immigrant workers from the inner city to package heroin in
thousands-upon-thousands of glassine envelopes stamped with catchy
logos like "LeBron James" and "Roger Dat."

The Fort Lee operation represented the new, more serene face of the
ever-thriving heroin trade in the New York City area, the drug's
national epicenter, according to the Manhattan-based narcotics
investigators who shut it down.

"It can still be a violent, dirty business, but it's changed," said
Bill Cook, a veteran investigator with the Office of the Special
Narcotics Prosecutor for New York City.

Absent are scenes out of films like "American Gangster," with kingpins
flaunting their wealth, settling turf wars with brazen gunplay and
serving a clientele of strung-out junkies queuing up to buy low-grade
product.

The new business model calls for more discretion and discipline, and
better branding and quality control. The heroin is purer and the users
more mainstream, including college students and professionals who
snort rather than shoot up. Many have seamlessly transitioned to
heroin after first getting hooked on prescription painkillers
belonging to the same opiate family.

Compared to past eras marked by images junkies cooking the drug with a
dirty spoon, heroin "doesn't have the same stigma attached to it,"
said John Gilbride, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New
York office.

Authorities say more abuse by a broader customer base has taken a
devastating human toll that's difficult to measure. Rehab centers have
told them that more people are seeking treatment, and there have been
recent reports of fatal heroin overdoses by teenagers on Long Island
and Westchester County.

That hasn't discouraged retailers -- mainly Dominican immigrants
supplied with Colombian heroin by Mexican cartels -- from steadily
expanding their operations throughout the city and its suburbs.

"There are more mills, and they're better at what they do," Cook
said.

Recent raids by the special prosecutor, DEA, New York Police
Department and New York State Police have resulted in multiple arrests
and larger and larger seizures. They've also given colorful insight
into current operations.

One mill was located in a newly renovated apartment in midtown
Manhattan that rented for $3,800 a month and was mere blocks from
Times Square and Broadway theaters. Workers there used coffee grinders
to cut the drug. They then filled glassines stamped with the brand
names "Jersey Boys" -- title of a hit musical -- and "95 South" -- a
reference to the interstate served by the nearby Lincoln Tunnel.

In another mill on an 18th-floor apartment in upper Manhattan a sign
read: "Clean Up After Yourselves -- The Management." The wall of yet
another Bronx mill displayed its menu of brand names, including "Lady
Gaga" and "Charlie Sheen."

Farther north, a mill was discovered across the street from Manhattan
College in a Bronx apartment building where students lived. Workers
there wore school sweatshirts to try to blend in.

One heroin ring used an unlikely location for transactions: a Brooklyn
neighborhood populated by young families living in renovated
brownstones. A dealer riding a three-wheeled motorcycle and a helmet
emblazoned with the heroin brand name "Sin City" would direct
customers to an exact block -- code-named "the office" -- then pull up
alongside their cars in the middle of traffic and exchange glassines
for cash.

Authorities say a dramatic spike in the amount of drugs seized during
the investigations shows that suppliers are working overtime to the
meet the escalating demand and maximize profits.

"They're very savvy businessmen who have one thing in mind -- making
money," said Bridget Brennan, the special prosecutor.

In the past two years, Brennan's office has brought drug-dealing
charges against at least 200 people associated with the mills. Many
face deportation if convicted.

The DEA has seized about 205 pounds of heroin in New York City and the
rest of the state so far this year, a pace that would eclipse the 278
pounds total last year and the 169 pounds in 2009. The seizures this
year have accounted for a quarter of those for the entire nation.

The heroin flooding the region -- sold in kilograms -- carries an
average wholesale price of about $60,000 per kilo. The retailers who
package it can cut a kilo to a 50-percent purity level using powdered
vitamin B or other nontoxic substances. That provides enough drugs to
fill 30,000 single-dose glassine envelopes that would be sold for $5
each to street-level dealers, who in turn charge customers $10 to $15.
In the end, after subtracting the cost of the kilo, wages and other
expenses, the mill operator would turn a $70,000 profit per kilo.

With retailers determined to saturate the market, mill employees tend
to work around-the-clock. Brennan compared them to factory workers
who, unlike the old days, don't sample the product.

"They're not in it for the drugs," she said. "It's strictly for the
dollars."

Workers can make up to $5,000 a week, depending on how many 12-hour
shifts they work. Their employers often protect them from an
occupational hazard -- heroin dust -- by installing ventilation systems
or providing them with respirators. They're also given meals and
toiletries to help make it through their shifts, authorities said.

In the case of the Fort Lee mill, there was free transportation as
well. Surveillance photos from the Washington Heights section of
Manhattan showed the workers congregating each day like day laborers
to catch the shuttle van to work.

When authorities raided the home in April, they came across a scene
emblematic of the current market: The young daughter of one of the
mill workers was at the kitchen table eating cereal and watching
cartoons. Sitting on the same table were two boxes stuffed with
glassine envelopes.

About five pounds of heroin and $50,000 in cash were recovered.