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Bergen-Based Gang Members Charged In DEA Takedown: Feds

A trio of Trinitarios street gang members who shared an apartment in Fort Lee slung fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin on both sides of the Hudson River before being busted last week, federal authorities charged.

The crew traveled back and forth "on a near-daily basis" between Fort Lee and an apartment in the Fort George section of Manhattan where drugs were packaged and stashed, the DEA said.

The crew traveled back and forth "on a near-daily basis" between Fort Lee and an apartment in the Fort George section of Manhattan where drugs were packaged and stashed, the DEA said.

Photo Credit: Jerry DeMarco / INSET: dea.gov
Jerry DeMarco

Ernesto Adon Martinez, 38, Luis Arismedy Gomez Torres, 28, and Deury Luis Gomez Torres, 25, drove back and forth "on a near-daily basis" between Fort Lee and an apartment just off Dyckman Street in the Fort George section of Manhattan where drugs were packaged and stashed, they said.The Trinitarios emerged in New York City in the 1990s as protection against rival gangs such as the Latin Kings. They quickly got into selling drugs, among other law-breaking enterprises.Last week, high-ranking member William "Principe" Jones was sentenced to life in federal prison for shooting and killing a confidential informant he lured to an area next to a cemetery in Sussex County.Jones had served more than a decade for another intentional murder in New York City in October 1993 before being released in September 2008.The DEA worked the Bergen County Trinitarios case with their federal and local colleagues, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) unit, the ATF, the NYPD and police from Fort Lee and Belleville, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.

Investigators sat on both apartments, tapped phone lines and recorded video of the defendants' various activities, according to a DEA complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark.

These included sales of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin to a confidential informant "on numerous occasions" in Fort Lee and Fort George, it says.

The probe produced charges against Martinez and both Gomez Torreses of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, meth and heroin. 

A fourth defendant, Jenny Desiree Rosario-Lorenzo, 28, was charged with possessing fentanyl and cocaine for sale and aiding and abetting the operation.

Rosario-Lorenzo, Martinez and Luis Arismedy Gomez Torres were all ordered held following a brief hearing before a federal judge in Newark on Wednesday, May 8, Sellinger said.

Deury Gomez Torres remained at large, he said on Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Goldberg of Sellinger's Organized Crime and Gangs Unit in Newark is handling the case for the government.

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