Nearly one quarter of a million dollars in illegal narcotics and prescription medicines, along with two fully loaded shotguns, were seized yesterday afternoon during the arrests of an alleged Latin Kings gang member and his accomplice during a raid at a residence in the city’s North Ward by a law enforcement task force comprised of detectives from the Essex County Sheriff’s Office and officers from the Bloomfield and Irvington police departments.
Sheriff Armando Fontoura stated that the task force officers, armed with a search warrant for 246 Clifton Avenue, surrounded the residence of Ramon ‘Tone’ Vega, age 57, prior to executing the warrant on Tuesday afternoon.
“After observing Vega interact with numerous passersby in front of his residence and then escort them down his driveway to the rear of his home the detectives from our Bureau of Narcotics believed they had witnessed drug transactions,” Sheriff Fontoura said. “As they moved in to further investigate, the task force found Vega and his alleged accomplice, Adalberto ‘Pepsi’ Garcia, 36 also of Newark, inside a garden shed in the backyard.”
Vega then passed a black plastic bag to Garcia who threw it into a nearby garbage can.
“The bag was recovered and found to contain significant quantities of cocaine, marijuana, Endocet, Xanax and Ecstasy,” Fontoura noted. “Vega was in possession of $400 in cash which was also recovered and both suspects were then placed under arrest.”
In executing the search warrant for the residence, the task force officers discovered an additional 1,800 grams of cocaine, nearly 3,000 grams of marijuana, 1,850 Ecstasy tablets, 25 grams of Oxycodone, 175 grams of Xanax and 21 grams of Tramadol.
“The exterior of the house was monitored by surveillance cameras and inside the residence we seized an incredibly wide variety of drug processing materials, along with a sawed-off Savage Arms shotgun, a second fully loaded shotgun and thousands of rounds of ammunition,” the sheriff added.
Vega and Garcia were each charged with 32 criminal counts, including possession of CDS, possession of CDS with intent to distribute, possession of a defaced weapon, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, conspiracy to violate New Jersey’s narcotics laws, possession of narcotics paraphernalia and maintaining a fortified structure.
Newark municipal court Judge Marvin Adames set a speedy bail of $850,000 cash bond only in each suspect and they were lodged at the county jail.
Vega and Garcia are scheduled for arraignment later today.