2 Lindenhurst men, 1 from North Amityville charged in connection with 'large scale' cocaine trafficking ring

Two Lindenhurst men and a third from North Amityville were arrested and charged in connection with a "large-scale" cocaine trafficking operation, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said Thursday.

Alleged distributor Gaspal German Santos, 40, of Lindenhurst, and alleged suppliers Isaul Soto Mejia, 37, of Lindenhurst, and Pawell Cassidy Guzman Jimenez, 37, of North Amityville, were arrested after law enforcement executed a pair of search warrants, Tierney said in a Thursday news release.

The district attorney’s East End Drug Task Force began an investigation into German Santos in March, according to the release. During the next seven months, he allegedly sold cocaine to an undercover member of the task force on 11 different occasions. On June 25, when he agreed to sell 200 grams of cocaine to the officer, the task force spotted Soto Mejia entering his vehicle and handing him a shopping bag. The same bag, loaded with the cocaine order, was then handed to the officer.

To fulfill the undercover officer’s later request for a kilogram of the illicit substance, German Santos, also known as  "Mochila," the Spanish word for backpack, met with Guzman Jimenez on Sept. 15, the release said.

On Oct. 2, the task force executed a search warrant at a "stash house" on Park Place in Amityville, where members of the multiagency unit recovered more than 1,000 bags "of what appeared to be cocaine ready for street sales," around $5,538 in cash, scales, bags for packaging narcotics for sale and cutting agents, the release said. The organization "went a step further than typical street-level packaging" by splitting kilogram packages into thirds "to sell smaller quantities at a substantial markup, effectively doubling their profits," the DA's office said. Task force members arrested Guzman Jimenez at the scene.

Six days later, the task force conducted a court-approved search of German Santos’ home on North Alleghany Avenue in Lindenhurst. Police seized 170 grams of cocaine, around $2,072, a drug ledger and drug paraphernalia, the district attorney's office said. Soon after, police arrested German Santos and Soto Mejia.

"These alleged drug dealers were flooding our communities with cocaine, putting countless lives at risk for their own profit," Tierney said in a statement. "Eleven separate sales to an undercover are not isolated transactions. As alleged, this was a deliberate, sustained operation fueled by suppliers and a seller who kept coming back for more."

German Santos was arraigned Thursday before acting Supreme Court Justice Philip Goglas in Riverhead on eight counts of first-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, second-degree conspiracy, three counts of third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and related charges, according to court documents. He is scheduled to return to court Dec. 9.

Also on Thursday and before the same judge, Soto Mejia was arraigned on charges of operating as a major trafficker, a class A-1 felony count of first-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, second-degree conspiracy, first-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, two counts of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and three counts of second-degree criminally using drug paraphernalia, according to Tierney’s office.

Guzman Jimenez was similarly arraigned on charges of operating as a major trafficker, two counts of first-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, second-degree conspiracy, first-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, three counts of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and three counts of second-degree criminally using drug paraphernalia, the release said.

Goglas ordered each man held on $2,000,000 cash, $10,000,000 bond or $20,000,000 partially secured bond.

Defense attorneys for Soto Mejia and Guzman Jimenez did not immediately return messages seeking comment late Thursday. A defense attorney for German Santos could not be reached Thursday evening.