Metro

Manhattan drug dealers promote delivery service with cards: authorities

The cards, which bore the ring’s phone numbers, were distributed widely in the East Village, Lower East Side and Tribeca.

The cards, which bore the ring’s phone numbers, were distributed widely in the East Village, Lower East Side and Tribeca. (
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NYU dorm-dwellers got a little more than their money’s worth from the Village Voice newspapers in their corner honor boxes: business cards advertising a massive, 24-hour drug delivery service.

A pair of enterprising entrepeneurs advertised their delivery service by removing stacks of the free papers from their honor boxes, paper-clipping a business cards to each one, then returning them to the box, officials said.

“I have seen loads of Craigslist cases,” said an incredulous Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Laura Ward, in setting bail for the pair at a whopping $1 million each.

“But I’ve never seen something as inventive as this. So this is actually something a little different for me.”

The business — whose cards bore either a “Coca Cola” logo or a picture of a livery car with the words “Purple Rain…Up in Smoke” — had acquired some 200 customers, said city Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly in a joint press release.

A four-month investigation revealed that the service delivered marijuana and low-cost but high-grade cocaine to customers’ doorsteps, targeting a clientele of university students and the bar crowd in the East Village and Lower East Side.

Two men, drug felons Thomas “Biggie” Zenon and Miguel “G” Guzman, pleaded not guilty today in Manhattan Supreme Court to multiple counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance.

Each pleaded not guilty today — but were unable to convince

On the busiest nights, each of the cell phones listed on the cards registered 170 in-coming and outgoing calls, officials said.

The service was first discovered last fall, when one of the doctored Voices was picked up by an anonymous tipster, who recognized the business cards for what they were, Brennan and Kelly said in a joint press release.

The tipster is a senior-level Manhattan court officer, said a law enforcement source.

The paper was in an honor box outside a New York University dorm at 10th St. and Third Avenue, officials said.

Cops learned the cards had also been stuck inside the doors of apartments in a high-rise building in Tribeca, among other locations, officials said.

Undercovers bought coke and marijuana from the pair on a dozen occasions, with sales typically made inside the delivery cars. Grams of coke went for just $60, what officials termed “an unusually low price for a delivery service.”

The biggest two sales were for a half-ounce of cocaine at $1,000 each, officials said.

Guzman, 43, of North Bergen, NJ, was busted last night as he allegedly got ready to make a delivery to a customer on the Upper West Side. He was carrying 16 grams of cocaine, more than $1,600 cash and four cell phones — and a small stack of the “Coca-Cola” cards.

Zenon, 40, a probationer for was busted last night inside a restaurant in Washington Heights. Cops found 20 bags of marijuana inside a coffee thermos in his car, as well as more “Purple Rain” cards, officials said.

Guzman was busted last night as he got ready to make a delivery to a customer on the Upper West Side. He was carrying 16 grams of cocaine, more than $1,600 cash and four cell phones — and a small stack of the “Coca-Cola” cards.

Both men have federal and/or state-level convictions for drug sales dating back from 2003, officials said.

The $1 million bail was set over the objections of both men’s lawyer, Barry Weinstein, who argued, “In all these months, they were unable to get an A1 sale out of these guys. These are not giants of industry.”