NEW YORK CITY was the scene for one of the USA’s biggest ever raids of the dance drug ecstasy last Thursday (November 30).
According to reports in the New York Post over the weekend, nearly 600,000 tablets were discovered to be in the possession of the Brooklyn resident Charles Coppola.
The 58-year-old florist was allegedly carrying 10,000 tablets in his shopping bag when police arrested him – the rest were allegedly discovered in the back of his car and in a suitcase at his house. The entire haul was estimated to carry a street value of between $12 million and $24 million. Reports say that Coppola’s arrest resulted from an ongoing police investigation into a suspected Israeli ecstasy smuggling ring.
A spokesperson for the US Drug Enforcement Agency commented that the size of the seizure is further evidence as to the increasingly widespread ecstasy use amongst American clubbers.
“This is not law enforcement hype,” said Lewis Rice, the head of the DEA’s New York office. “With the media, unless there is a celebrity who overdoses, it doesn’t really garner national attention.”