NYPD confiscates 580-pound, $10 million cocaine haul from Queens storage unit

A joint NYPD and DEA investigation led to the confiscation of 580 pounds of cocaine, estimated at $10 million, from a storage facility in Long Island City. Nelson Salcedo, a 35-year-old from Englewood, New Jersey, was arrested while attempting to load a Nissan van with twelve boxes of the drug, with seven additional boxes found nearby. The operation traced Salcedo’s deliveries from Fort Lee, where agents recovered $170,000 in cash and a firearm, to drop-offs near Central Park.

Field tests confirmed the substance as cocaine, and officials said the shipment is tied to a nationwide cartel network. The seizure marks the largest by the NYPD in over ten years and the biggest by the special narcotics prosecutor’s office in more than twenty years. Salcedo and two associates have been charged, while the recipient of the deliveries remains at large.