Heroin Epidemic and Gambling Busts in Jersey

Over Thanksgiving I was back in my old neighborhood in Jersey and forgot to post a few things I heard from guys I grew up with on both sides law enforcement and wiseguys. (Keep in mind I'm in my early 30s, so this is from younger guys in law enforcement and the life's perspective)

-due to the heroin epidemic here in Jersey, you will notice a lot less gambling busts and there will be less gambling busts moving forward due to county law enforcement's main concentration being the opioids crises here (county and state law enforcement typically always made the frequent gambling busts we used to have in Jersey)

-The DeCavalcantes are a laughing stock amongst wise guys and are "a small crew of old men who can't cross the street without permission (from the Gambinos)" Now keep in mind This was from a guy I grew up with who is affiliated with another family, who is my age.

-Between Heroin on the county and state law enfocement's main investigative priorities and with terrorism and political corruption being the Federal Government's main investigative priorities, guys in life are generally feeling a lot less pressure and aren't being pursued relentlessly and non-stop like they were in the 1990s and pre 9/11 2000s.

However, the Heroin crisis here has really taken the attention away from their main money maker- Sports Betting. In general, they're feeling a lot less attention from law enforcement , mainly being after the Heroin crisis hit all the White suburbs here and kids started dying and if they weren't dying they were robbing and stealing for Heroin/OxyContin

I'd imagine that helps out OC well. I wonder if any LCN members are dabbling in selling H. Do you think it would be easier to get made with the Decavs because of their status ?

If you could only see how that kid Mario they busted in the most recent DeCavalcante Toms River crew Bust looked and acted you would realize that they're not getting the best and brightest young guys in the year 2016....

Dabble in selling H, it's more like most of the younger guys are hooked on Oxys, Percocets, and H etc....

http://www.app.com/story/news/crime/jers...amily/88474290/

Exact same thing in mass. Yep theyll never have the power they had in the 70ty even 90tys but theres some much herion and deaths in the white suburbs. I seen a thing on fox news up in Lowell they had a whole auditorium of family members who kids died and Lowell is small was a full house. Opioid crisis no joke up here. The feds busted the acting boss he got 18months what the fucks the point of the feds evening wasting there time with these old dinosaurs running gambling rings.

Yeah I'm 100% in support of law enforcement putting their full attention into opioid busts

i second that

Dante,

It seems that the traditional rackets will be getting less attention, but aren't a lot of the younger guys involved in flipping oxys and whatnot?

While I am also supportive of focusing their efforts on the opiod crisis, it really needs to be addressed at a Federal Level through regulation and policy to clamp down on these fucking Pharma companies who profit off the misery of America. It's sickening. There's no reason a 30 mg pill should be able to be crushed and snorted/injected, for one. Those simply shouldn't exist.

Guys in the life will Do ANYTHING to earn. Yes a lot of the younger guys flip Oxys and are also strung out on them. It's not like it is in the movies or in The Sopranos.....

Haha, I know.

What I was trying to say was, while there is a lack of LE attention on traditional rackets, a lot of these guys are still exposed even if LE is shifting their priorities.

What you wrote makes sense,MH.

Big Pharma spends too much on lobbies for the govt. to clamp down on them...and the new administration says it will more "business friendly" so that means less regulations across the board. Pharma makes money and Prison system makes money by locking more people up.


"This is big business, it's the American way" -Nino Brown

Thanks for the info DanteMoltisanti

I've seen a huge drop in oxy selling as dealers can't get the quantity anymore. Back in the day big dealers could get their hands on 1000+ a month to sell which brought in serious $ and thus OC involvement ( 2009 to 2013 probably had huge oxy envelops ) . There was a big Nutley bust maybe 4-5 years ago where the crew had ties to NJ OC but it wasn't reported .

Now Heroin is a totally different thing but IMO LE has done a very good job in a pretty short time frame to shut down the oxy trade . Now there are some people that can get their hands on a script or 2 a month but the days of having a crew moving hundreds a week are gone , at least from what I know . Moving large quantity of weed is where they are likely now more than ever and even if you only move 25-50 lb a month of hydro , your making real $ ( CA and Col wholesale prices were slashed big time in last year so a good dealer can clear maybe $1k gross a lb )- its feeding people for sure . Shoot some retailers moving a lb or 2 a week are able to eat

everyone knows about the quasi legit construction , real estate , garbage stuff but the area that has evolved where people are making some good $ today is check cashing and money laundering . Those west side nj guys have access to a lot of cash and can service all kinds of other criminals and criminal activity in the area and money laundering can be a mobile business that must be impossible to keep up with llcs within llcs within llcs and all with fronts lol.

The luchesse seem big in gambling and I'm sure other stuff and prolly the gambinos too but to this day I've never heard about a gambino nj book / racket lol , but the WS are some real professional racketeers in NJ , pretty amazing how they can evolve their rackets with LE trends.

I wasn't around in the 80s , and the 90s had some real blue collar , cowboy open shit but that's gone, and the few that do won't last . I feel the luchesse will always likely have a big book business and some ancillary stuff but the WS likely have their hands in a ton and their bankroll likely allows them to facilitate all kinds of shit and keep it quiet, small crews. I was a regular at a place they had a big money laundering op and you would have no idea , and they did an insane amount . Newark has a lot of $ activity but you wouldn't have a clue , real pros I guess with their hands likely in some real major activity thats borderline legit and again I can't even imagine how hard for LE to track . Their book is likely so big it can finance all kinds of high end activity. Some of these guys had a ton of shit in JC and a ton of real estate , what a score! and god only knows the property they own in Newark with all the redevelopment around Harrison and NWK PATH- Its likely going to be another score . A lot more bars for these guys to go to now as well lol. Sorry about using the word likely so much but in all honesty I have almost no rap clue on the above so def take with multiple grains of salt

I did read about WS books are closed and who knows if thats true w them and what's dis information etc lol, but if I was running their shop and things weren't too bad from a $ standpoint and I didn't need the big crews anymore (( a few guys over seeing a bunch of agents that do much of the visible activity ( poor guys are usually 9-5 ers but sound like Gotti wanna bees in the papers )) , there is no need to make guys and increase your exposure . Who even knows if Barney even takes blue collar cash anymore , no need to expose yourself like that and several ways to accept legit $. Just speculation on my part tho

DB- this is precisely why i look forward to your posts my friend..you wrote about what you know, make educated speculation about what you don't based on your experience and come to logical conclusions...+1000 for everything you wrote buddy thanks for sharing...just from a strategic organizational standpoint the Genovese would be wise to do exactly what you alluded to in forming smaller crews with reliable non-cowboy earners... in a LE climate focusing on terrorists and the heroin epidemic I think you're absolutely correct that if theyre smart and focus on construction, white collar shit coupled with their massive gambling and shylocking business already in place that their influence as well as the Lucchese family to which they're aligned with in alotta ventures will only expand and increase...

To me Barney is a genius in insulating his money and control..i for one know he ties up his his money in legit businesses w his kids and has alotta real estate he invests in as well...although hes a criminal and a killer, i gotta give him props for his ability to stay underneath the radar and make his money work for him

Thanks for the intel Dante. Some great post & discussion in this thread

If you are a young guy, and in the streets, weed is where it's at.


A lotta states have decriminalized possession of small amounts, so a street level guy shouldn't get locked up behind a couple ounces or whatever.

Colorado loud is 1400 a pound now, IN RADO. I got a Pakistani friend who was getting it shipped to him for like 600 a QP, and he thought it was a lick.
I got a guy in Michigan who says its 165 an oz, and Cali is going for 900 a pound.
At that price you could retail 8ths for 25$, and still get your 200$ a zone, 3200$ a pound, 2300$ PROFIT, per pound. Even 100$ a zone gets you decent profit, if you are lazy lol....

Dabs get like cocaine prices outside Rado, 1300 a zone....

If you know how to grow, it's even better, but you have to really know what you are doing...

And the weed market has very little ceiling, everyone smokes, all demographics, age groups, ethnicities, and genders.

I e also found you get a lot of money from weed, from working professionals, like college educated, high living types. They will buy a quarter or half every week like nothing. You get 10-20 of those, you are doing alright......

Lots of good feedback in this thread. This subject hits close to home for me. I've lost many friends to opiates. I have family members currently struggling and fighting for their lives. Dante always has his ear to the street. The problem with opiates is unreal. when someone dies nowadays it's not like, "oh my god." It's become normal. Once graduated from pills to dope, it is nothing short of a miracle for a person to get clean, embrace recovery, and realize they most likely can never use alcohol or drugs ever again in any capacity or else it will lead to a relapse on opiates (although a relapse is considered using anything). You cannot make someone want to get clean. The pain needs to become too great. You literally have to hit your bottom and that bottom is different for every person. gambling may ruin lives but how many bodies are dropping because of it? This is really simple shit as far as LE and what they need to focus on. Also, more money needs to be spent on recovery. New Jersey is a joke when it comes to this. One place in all of New Jersey where an addict can go to detox without insurance. Bergen regional medical center. People from cape may, Camden, etc... Drive hours to get there. This is not going away and will only get worse. Look at paterson... You drive down the street and you have 5 16 year old kids trying to sell you 3 dollar bags of heroin. Yes three dollars. Sick shit going on out here.

Also what Dante said about young kids in the life getting into selling H BEING A JOKE... He's exactly right.mmore likely to have a habit than to be selling it. Johnny perna was a big roxy user. He would get clean , relapse, and on and on.... Gianni Iacovo and mike cetta- pills to dope to overdose. I saw the progression first hand. DB where you talking about operation oxy moron in nutley that Wayne cross got caught up in ?

Saw this today, it put me in mind of this thread:

Heroin deaths surpass gun homicides for the first time, CDC data shows

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk...m=.87e4d1dd1231

Crazy thing is herion destroys lives but its the cutt like fetanol that killing people. Back in the day if you shot up and did to many benzos youd fall asleep n die this new shit tiny shot in the arm and your out. Up here worcester ma. A few people die everyday and across the state its i think leading the country but its really the whole northeast.

Last thing 10yrs ago when doctors where writing oc40scripts for a bad back around mass there wasnt any fentanyl in the dope it was un heard of and people werent dying like they are today. Now there no ocs around cause the dea went to every doc office and threaten to take there licences so kids are doing more dope. Government conspiracy shit i swear. And last but not least in a sports talk radio all day in the car every fucking commericial break are ads for detox or recorvery places wtf. Nother new bussiness. Big too. Running ads on sports radio. Fuck the world.

they could stop heroin overdoses if they wanted

stop taking payoffs at the border and god knows where else

All the young fringe OC guys in south philly sell tons of pounds of weed. In northeast you got albanians selling it. All across the entire city the asians, specifically vietnamese sell a lot and run big grows too. Theres huge money in weed now because more people than ever smoke it. You can get pounds as close as arizona for 900-1400 and wholesale out here for 2000-2200. Thats just wholesale. Then you get a few people in philly or NJ and they buy a pound or two or three for 2400-2800. Then that guy sells zips for 200-300 and so on and so forth

The weed game in the. North east is where it's at if you get pounds from Cali and can get it to the north east your set. Know people with delivery services that are making huge money. The problem with the oxy game is it's so fickle. 0!3 month there's thousands the next few there is non.. but it is still possible to get some decent 30mg scripts but getting thousands off the streets at a time now is almost non existent ..

In Mississippi, Opioid pills overdose death is growing and it was over 300 back in 2014. Some users switch to Heroin near the Memphis & N.O metros. Even some meth users are switching to Heroin. There's enough opioid pills for every Mississippian at 120 per 100 or between 60-70 pills each.

A buddy ask what grade of loud that sells for that price of 1400?

Most really good indoor grown weed in Cali when it arrives to my goes for 2-2500 usually and that's in pretty big quantity.. don't know why but ny people love sour diesel

Weird to in ny they like variety.. west coast everyone just wants some sort of og kush

There is a breeder, I think he goes by Top Dawg, has a seed line with the same name, he's from NY and is one of the originators of sour diesel, and I think he might have created the NYC diesel.

The courier service is real too. I know an Indian kid, was using a site' you needed like two or three references. But once you were in, you go to the site, pull up a weed menu, pick a strain, and it gets delivered to you, like Grub-Hub. Maybe I should get a copyright or patent or something for a " Bud- Hub" lol.

@ Black Fam

It's the real deal loud grade, but the thing is you kinda gotta GO there to get that price. Otherwise all the price quotes here are pretty accurate...

Although, if there are people running grow-ops, you can maybe do better if you got a good plug..

I feel like in the past the general dictum of "don't get high on your own supply" was actually there for two reasons--one, you can't be a good businessman on drugs, and two, if you were hooked up, you were truly fucked if you got jammed up and your crew told the higher ups you were addicted--because no one flips or says the wrong thing quicker than someone detoxing or even just living in the insanity of addiction.

I wonder if the second holds true with the oxy plague--which at least in SP has not discriminated, I mean there are sons and nephews of longtime connected or even ruling guys who have gone to rehab this past year. I have to wonder if the top brass worries if a young guy on oxy is any different than one shooting up.

This is true. Stevie mazzones nephew.. the one who's always in pics with don grande just recently got back from rehab from using blues 30mg oxycodone... pretty crazy I don't know the kid but wouldn't suspect he was strung out. Really makes me wonder if some of you younger guys like don grande are fucked up on those things also... crazy cause I really do feel like the younger lcn crowd these days 40 and under lot of them have pill problems... from Johnny perna. Cetta. Iacovo, then there was coppolas kid and his guys who were snorting dope...

Not an oz of flowers, an oz of dabs, the THC concentrate. And at least here in the Northeast the numbers for it definitely hover around there.