The feds busted two Department of Veterans Affairs’ staffers for using a mail room at the agency’s medical center in The Bronx to run a coke-dealing operation.
Robert Tucker, of The Bronx, and Eric Casiano, of West Orange, NJ, were hauled into Manhattan federal court Wednesday on charges of conspiracy to distribute and possess a controlled substance.
Tucker, a warehouse and mail-center supervisor, and Casiano, an agency pipe-fitter, were charged with running the drug-dealing operation at the VA Medical Center in the Bronx since at least November 2013. They face anywhere from 10 years to life in prison if convicted.
In December 2013, postal inspectors in San Juan, Puerto Rico, seized a suspicious package addressed to the Medical Center, to the attention of “Warehouse,” and discovered approximately two kilograms of cocaine inside the package, officials said.
Undercover officers watched both men over the following months until getting a big break Tuesday. Tucker, 64, was spotted on surveillance video retrieving another similarly addressed package from the Medical Center mail room. He brought it to his office and gave it to Casiano in exchange for $ 500 in cash. Casiano, 29, was arrested by postal inspectors trying to leave the facility after
federal agents seized 1 kilogram of cocaine from his car.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara ripped the defendants for allegedly using “the cover of a facility dedicated to caring for our nation’s heroes to further a scheme to distribute large amounts of cocaine.”
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