The best laid plans of their Bronx kidnapping plot didn’t just go astray; it led law enforcement agents to a million-dollar narcotics bust, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Law enforcement sources said Ronny Jimenez Peralta and Cesar Jimenez Alonso were indicted this week for allegedly abducting a rival in the Bronx on Jan. 31 in a drug dispute gone bad. They were picked up hours after holding the man inside a basement apartment, where they had tortured him with a hot iron.
In stopping the kidnapping plot, agents with the DEA new York Division, the NYPD, Customs and Border Protection New York Field Operations and the New York State Police recovered more than 4.2 kilos of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and para-fluorofentanyl, most of which was contained within the Bronxdale Avenue apartment where the suspects’ foe was held. The DEA estimated that the seized drugs had a street value of about a million dollars.
“This case shows that the illegal narcotics trade not only brings deadly fentanyl to the Bronx, but guns and brutality,” said Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark in a March 2 announcement from Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan. “Fortunately, investigators intercepted the drugs before they hit the streets, where they would have sold for $1 million and wrought inestimable damage to the community.”
Law enforcement agents uncovered the kidnapping and drug dealing plot as part of an ongoing investigation into Peralta and Alonso. They first learned of the kidnapping plot back on Jan. 29, when the two suspects allegedly threatened the foe they allegedly abducted and another individual over an ongoing dispute.
At about 3:21 a.m. on Jan. 31, prosecutors said, Peralta and Alonso allegedly confronted their foe near the corner of West 183rd Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in University Heights. Alonso was recorded as telling their rival, “There is no consideration in this situation. Because of this, brothers will end up killing each other.”
A short time later, the indictment alleged, Peralta and Alonso bound the man, covered his head in a ski mask and then transported him to a basement apartment along the 1800 block of Bronxdale Avenue in Morris Park, about three miles from where the confrontation occurred.
Inside the basement apartment, law enforcement sources said, the pair of suspects allegedly bound their rival’s hands and ankles, and burned his bare buttocks with a heated iron. Video of the kidnapping was later recovered from the suspects’ cellphones and a security camera device at the residence.
Later that morning, it is alleged, Peralta confronted one of the rival’s associates and said, “If you are interested in keeping your family and yourself safe, all you have to do is get what belongs to me.”
Agents nabbed Peralta and Alonso the next morning, at about 11:16 a.m. on Feb. 1. They recovered keys to the Bronxdale Avenue apartment and stash house, later searching the premises and discovering the drugs.
Police also found a gun under the driver’s seat in the pickup truck where the two suspects were located.
“The NYPD and our law enforcement partners remain focused on the small number of people who are responsible for the crime and disorder in our city, and we are working tirelessly to identify them and get them off our streets,” said Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. “As demonstrated by this case, the dangerous combination of illicit drugs, illegal guns and brutal violence will never be tolerated in New York City.”
Both suspects were indicted on second-degree conspiracy and kidnapping charges as well as criminal possession of a controlled substance, criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal use of drug paraphernalia.
