Rockland County drug raids nets several Dominicans

NUEVA YORK.- The Rockland County Office of the District Attorney announced the arrest of 22 alleged narcotics traffickers, several Dominicans among them, including a woman, in an operation of several months dubbed “High Ride” and carried out in several towns.

The detainees, who face 40 counts of trafficking with cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, crack, heroin and prescription drugs, were rounded up in raids on houses and apartments used to process and distribute drugs.

District attorney Thomas P. Zugibe said 18 of the 22 were indicted Monday morning, with ages between 18 and 56.

The investigation, the official said, began 10 months ago after investigators assigned to the county’s Anti Drugs Task Force were tipped off by the Orangetown Police Department on drug trafficking in nearby Nyack.

The Dominicans are Tyrone Gomez, who sold cocaine to undercover agents in several occasions in 2001, Oscar Santos, Felix Quezada and Maria Rodriguez. The others are mostly black, some Central Americans and whites.

Task Force chief Christopher Goldrick said four others are still on the loose and sought by the U.S. Marshalls, adding that the arrests form part a campaign to strike the drug trafficking in Rockland county.