Members of rival Brooklyn gangs held a truce long enough to build a lucrative drug and gun trafficking operation before law enforcement authorities dismantled it by arresting seven people and seizing more than 20 weapons, officials said Friday.
Crips and Bloods were working hand in hand to sell guns and drugs in Crown Heights until a yearlong undercover operation exposed their criminal coalition, officials said.
“They set aside rivalries to work together, united not by loyalty but by greed and a willingness to flood one of our neighborhoods with crack cocaine and guns,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. “Now, their reign of terror is coming to an end.”
Officials said the 12-month crackdown involved wiretaps, personal and electronic surveillance and undercover officers who bought drugs and guns after complaints about rampant drug sales in the vicinity of Sterling Place and Schenectady Ave.
Police said the operation was run by reputed Crips member Dwayne Seales, 39, of Brooklyn, who was charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance and criminal sale of a firearm.
Tisch said Seales oversaw a street-level network of drug dealers who worked around the clock. She said at least one of those involved was a member of the Bloods.
After making several crack cocaine sales to an undercover officer in a smoke shop, a bodega and a Chinese restaurant, Seales upped the ante with an offer to sell guns to the same undercover officer, officials said.
In January, Seales sold the undercover cop two semiautomatic pistols, along with more crack cocaine, officials said.
Over the next four months, Seales allegedly sold guns to the undercover on eight more occasions.
In all, 20 firearms were sold, ranging from revolvers to rifles, and all were operable, officials said. Eleven of them featured high-capacity magazines. Another gun was recovered during a search.
Officials said the gun and drug sales netted more than $35,000 for Seales and his crew.
