Cocaine

Criminal investigations can be oddly serendipitous, leading agents in unpredictable directions. Take the case of Angel Maldonado. When U.S. Postal Service inspectors tracked a package of cocaine from Puerto Rico to Maldonado's North Philadelphia home in April 2010, they believed they were closing in on a drug dealer. But they also discovered clues to a fraud that ultimately collapsed the Borinquen Federal Credit Union, an established North Philadelphia institution, and led to the arrest of its manager.

Criminal investigations can be oddly serendipitous, leading agents in unpredictable directions. Take the case of Angel Maldonado. When U.S. Postal Service Inspectors tracked a package of cocaine from Puerto Rico to Maldonado's North Philadelphia home in April 2010, they believed they were closing in on a drug dealer. But they also discovered clues to a fraud that ultimately collapsed Borinquen Federal Credit Union, an established North Philadelphia bank, and led to the arrest of its manager.

MIAMI - Griselda Blanco, the drug kingpin known for her blood-soaked style of street vengeance during Miami's "cocaine cowboys" era of the '70s and '80s, was shot to death Monday in Medellin by a motorcycle-riding assassin. Blanco, 69, spent nearly two decades behind bars in the United States for drug trafficking and three murders, including the 1982 slaying of a 2-year-old boy in Miami. Called the "Godmother of Cocaine," she was deported in 2004 to Colombia, where she maintained a low profile.

NEWARK, N.J. - Authorities say that a New Jersey letter carrier used her mail route to courier packages of cocaine for Puerto Rican drug traffickers. Christina Nunez is charged with conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine, and mail theft. The 30-year-old from Lyndhurst, at an initial appearance Tuesday in federal court in Newark, didn't enter a plea. She has been released on $100,000 bail and will be subject to electronic monitoring. Nunez's boyfriend also has been arrested and charged.

A former bank manager from Philadelphia was charged today in embezzling more than $2.3 million from a credit union that he used to try to buy 15 kilograms of cocaine and real estate, federal authorities said. Ignacio "Nacho" Morales, 40, was manager of the Borinquen Federal Credit Union, which served low-income Hispanics in North Philadelphia. In June 2011, the National Credit Union Association took over BFCU, but within two weeks, closed the credit union and liquidated its assets.

WASHINGTON - Production of pure cocaine in Colombia declined 25 percent in the last year, according to a U.S. government survey of drug production. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Monday that potential cocaine production in the South American country has dropped 72 percent since 2001. Colombia now ranks third, behind Peru and Bolivia, in production of pure cocaine, he said. "Potential production of pure cocaine in Colombia is down to 195 metric tons from 700 metric tons in 2001, the lowest production-potential level since 1994 and the first time since 1995 that Colombia is producing less cocaine than either Peru or Bolivia," Kerlikowske said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Bill "El Wingador" Simmons, five-time champion of the Wing Bowl, sports-talk radio station WIP's annual competitive wing-eating bacchanalia, was being held in the Gloucester County Jail on Tuesday afternoon after his arrest Friday on drug-distribution charges. After a monthlong investigation by the county Prosecutor's Office and New Jersey state police, the 50-year-old Woodbury Heights resident was arrested in Harrison Township. State police stopped and searched Simmons and his 2010 Kia Soul, a vehicle emblazoned with his celebrity moniker.

A Collingswood man authorities described as the leader of a cocaine distribution network was sentenced Friday in Superior Court to 12 years in state prison for distributing drugs and to an additional five years, to be served concurrently, for gun possession. Nicholas C. Stens, 26, had pleaded guilty March 12 to the charges in a 2011 state grand jury indictment that followed "Operation White Cloud," a joint investigation by federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities.

For aself-trained mechanic who was born in the Dominican Republic, became a naturalized citizen here in December 2005 and later worked for US Airways as a fleet-service agent, it was a stunning fall from grace. By March 2006, federal prosecutors said Richard Moquete was buying and selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine in Philadelphia that he acquired from a Mexican-based drug-trafficking organization. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Lowe said Moquete, who was sentenced to 27 years in a federal lockup Monday, was the organization's only cocaine distributor in Philadelphia.