Attention shoppers: heroin in aisle 3

Three young men charged last week in an alleged cocaine and heroin ring have been accused of using local retail outlets, including Target, Applebees, Marshalls, Walgreens, Starbucks, Subway, Foodtown and Land and Sea Restaurant, to make their sales.  

The Bronx District Attorney’s office, which had been gathering evidence against the defendants since May, detailed in complaints against the defendants how the ring sold from such locales as Game Stop and Game Depot, stamping bags of heroin with titles like “Wire” and “Tylenol.”

But the charges they now face are no joke and constitute way more than a headache for friends and family who wept inside the courtroom Friday night as two alleged dealers and two alleged conspirators were hit with charges ranging from operating as a major trafficker to criminal weapons possession. 

Another adult was later charged in connection with the investigation.

Complaints filed in Bronx Criminal Court tell the story of how Jose Grijalva, 23, Pedro Gonzalez, 25 and brother Pablo Gonzalez, 23, took calls from customers, including undercover detectives, and agreed to meet them at various stores inside Marble Hill’s River Plaza Shopping Center, along Broadway in Kingsbridge, the residential area around West 238th Street and Orloff Avenue, Van Cortlandt Park South and other locations within the 50th, 52nd and 49th precincts. 

Assistant district attorneys said during arraignments that the investigation began in April after two young adults in Yorktown, N.Y. died from a heroin overdose and the Westchester County Drug Task Force found a product marked “CHINA WHITE.”

According to the complaints, undercover agents from the Bronx narcotics bureau’s Major Case Unit bought or observed the sales of more than $75,000 worth of heroin and cocaine between April and the end of October.