Brooklyn D.A. Busts Drug Kingpin Who Posed As Used Car Dealer

By Elizabeth Dwoskin Wed., Jul. 29 2009 at 5:43 PM

Categories: Crime, Drugs, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Featured, Legal

A Cuban national who supplied drugs to crack houses on the outreaches of Brooklyn was caught in Miami and indicted by the D.A.'s office today. The man, Yotuhel Montane, ostensibly ran a South Florida car dealership, but was actually supplying a kilogram of cocaine each month to a drug ring in an upscale part of Bay Ridge.

At a press conference today, Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes said the two Bay Ridge crack houses sold about 2,000 bags of crack-cocaine each week. At $20 bucks a pop, that amounted to $40,000 weekly - and more than two million dollars each year.

Complaints from neighbors about the crackhouses led to an indictment this past April, in which 43 people from the drug ring were charged. Hynes described the ring as a violent gang that would buy cocaine from Montane in Miami and drive it up to New York.

The DA's office did not say how extensive the drug ring was and said that they are "still investigating" Montane's suppliers.

At the press conference, a reporter (not this one) asked Hynes a typically reporterly question: What portion of the total drug supply coming into New York City do these indictments represent? Hynes answer was, in a word: nill.

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