A pair of 26-year-old Lower East Side twin brothers were among 11 individuals indicted last month in conspiracies to commit narcotics trafficking and weapons possession. The indictment was filed by the office of Bridget G. Brennan, the special narcotics prosecutor.
During a sweep on March 16, Brooklyn narcotics officers arrested eight defendants in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Nassau County. Police seized four loaded firearms, more than 5 pounds of powdered and crack cocaine, more than 1 pound of heroin and roughly 27 pounds of marijuana from a Brooklyn stash house, as well as from the home of brothers John Gonzalez a.k.a. “Gotti” and Jonathan Gonzalez a.k.a. “Loso” at 7 St. James Place, in the Alfred E. Smith Houses
In addition, cops seized more than $110,000 in cash and luxury cars — including a Bentley, a BMW and a Cadillac — from these locations, as well as from another Brooklyn stash house and a residence in Woodmere, Long Island.
In May 2016, police identified the Lower East Side twins as the leaders of a drug ring operating around a building in the Roosevelt Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
Undercover cops made nearly two-dozen buys of crack cocaine from the Gonzalez brothers’ drug organization, police said. The investigation later led police to identify a group of additional drug traffickers operating in Brooklyn and supplying the siblings.
After receiving court authorization for a wiretap, police learned that John Gonzalez and others in his drug crew allegedly planned to carry out a home-invasion robbery of another drug trafficker in Rochester, N.Y., and steal a safe with money, narcotics and a firearm, a plan that led “Gotti” to travel to Rochester.
On Oct. 18, 2016, Jonathan Gonzalez allegedly instructed his brother to take firearms out of a stove at their shared residence at 7 St. James Place. On March 16, police seized two loaded guns from the apartment’s stove.
The Gonzalezes were charged with multiple counts of conspiracy and criminal sale of a controlled substance — John with six charges, including selling drugs near school grounds, and Jonathan with five.
Lincoln Anderson
