A crooked Bronx transit cop was on a drug kingpin’s payroll over a span of 15 years — raking in tens of 1000’s in bribes to maneuver cocaine by the kilo, a bombshell new federal indictment claims.
Andrew Nguyen, 41, additionally scanned NYPD data for info on the narcotics honcho’s rivals, eliminated medication from the supplier’s stash home and orchestrated a phony visitors cease and drug “seizure” to assist the supplier dodge a $245,000 debt to one in every of his suppliers, courtroom papers say.
The corrupt officer teamed up with the “chief of a drug trafficking enterprise” shortly after being employed to patrol subways in Transit District 12 within the East Bronx in 2008, the feds allege. He’d struck up a friendship with the supplier, who offered heroin, cocaine and marijuana, two years earlier.
In October 2008, the drug trafficker, who the indictment doesn’t identify, was busted for promoting heroin to an undercover police officer. Quickly afterward, Nguyen went to the supplier’s stash home and eliminated heroin and a firearm from the premises in order that police wouldn’t discover them, courtroom papers declare.
Nguyen reached again out to the kingpin once more in 2020, asking if he had any work within the drug enterprise out there for some “fast money,” the indictment alleges.
The trafficker quickly had Nguyen moonlighting as a drug mule, transporting greater than eight kilos of cocaine whereas bearing NYPD “credentials” that he “deliberate to make use of to evade arrest” within the occasion {that a} reputable cop pulled him over, courtroom papers say.
A gun-toting Nguyen additionally drove the drug trafficker to conferences between 2020 and 2023, pocketing between $1,000 and $2,000 per journey, the indictment alleges.
The soiled officer additionally charged $1,000 to look the NYPD database for info on the trafficker’s rivals, the feds say. Nguyen even provided to arrest a drug supplier who owed the drug boss cash in trade for $20,000, however each males determined to not undergo with the plan, courtroom papers say.
In January 2021, Nguyen carried out maybe his most beautiful alleged crooked plot — taking $10,000 to stage a automotive cease through which he pretended to grab the supplier’s medication with the intention to con an out-of-state marijuana provider that the supplier owed $245,000.
Nguyen advised the supplier the place he’d be pulling him over, after which “pretended to arrest” him whereas the provider listened on a video name, courtroom papers say. Nguyen then allegedly launched the supplier after driving him a number of blocks.
Nguyen was fired from the pressure in December 2023 however for a separate misdeed — stealing a pair of kids’s Nikes {that a} coworker stashed within the precinct property room, NYPD data present. He’d been making an annual wage of greater than $100,000 on the time.
The feds caught Nguyen on digital camera throughout a December 2023 sting transporting 5 kilos of what he believed was cocaine in trade for $5,000 from the supplier, courtroom papers present. It was unclear Wednesday why he was solely arrested on Tuesday, practically two years later.
Nguyen pleaded not responsible at his first look in Manhattan federal courtroom Tuesday to wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy costs that carry a potential decades-long jail sentence.
A decide set bond at $400,000 bond, and he’s due again in courtroom on November 24.
