Three police busts Wednesday led to 45 arrests and the recovery of 17 guns and more than five kilograms of cocaine in Brooklyn, the NYPD said.
Two of the takedowns were drug- and gang-related, while the third involved a gun trafficking operation out of Virginia, police said, and each of them was the result of monthslong investigations.
“You’re looking at the front lines of precision policing right here,” Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said at a news conference Thursday morning announcing the arrests.
In one of the cases, dubbed “Operation Triple Play,” 27 people, including several alleged members of the Wave Gang, were charged in connection with selling crack, heroin and oxycodone at three NYCHA developments in Brownsville — the Seth Low Houses, Glenmore Plaza and the Van Dyke Houses.
The gang is “hit and they’re going down,” Deputy Chief Michael Kemper said, but he cautioned that there is still police work to do. “For me to stand here right now and say the Wave Gang is 100 percent dismantled, I wouldn’t be painting an accurate picture. I can say that they are seriously hurt.”
He is anticipating more arrests, he said.
In the other drug bust, 15 members of the “Boss Crew,” a subset of the Bloods Gang, were charged with selling crack and heroin, primarily out of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Assistant Chief James Essig said.
They were also connected to five nonfatal shootings, 11 robberies and 12 illegal firearms, Essig said.
The third takedown involved the illegal sale of guns. The three individuals were involved in a scheme to buy more than 40 guns in Virginia, advertise them on social media and sell them in New York City, Deputy Chief Vincent DiDonato said.
Seven guns were confiscated during the investigation in New York and Virginia, Captain Anthony Guadagno said.
“There’s many more firearms that were purchased by this group, but we’re in the process of still investigating all those other firearms,” he said.
There was no correlation between the three takedowns, but they each involved repeat offenders and multiple incidents involving illegal guns, Shea said.
“The fastest, swiftest way to draw the attention of the NYPD and get into trouble is pick up an illegal firearm in New York City,” he said.
