Admitted NJ gangster indicted in cocaine and pot haul at Teterboro Airport

A New Jersey resident and admitted “five-star general” in the Nine Trey Gangsters set of the Bloods — with ties to the New York-based Lucchese crime family — was indicted with a North Jersey man this month after their arrest at Teterboro Airport aboard a private plane with luggage bags and boxes allegedly containing narcotics, including cocaine and weed.

Edwin Spears of Newark — who court documents say is also known as "Money" — and Leonardo Petrosillo of Wayne were charged in the Dec. 14 indictment with conspiracy to distribute and export controlled substances.

They were at Teterboro on Nov. 16 to take a private flight to Liverpool John Lennon Airport in England. When Customs and Border Protection officers inspected the plane, they found 12.6 kilograms of cocaine in a small luggage bag and 500 pounds of marijuana packed in 12 large luggage bags, court documents say.

This isn't the first time Teterboro Airport, a hub for the private jets and high life associated with the uber-wealthy, has been the setting for allegedly illicit activity. Now-deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein used the airport, just 15 miles from Manhattan, as a base for sex trafficking and transporting underage girls to locations in and outside the U.S.

Customs officials held and questioned Canadian singer Justin Bieber in the airport in 2014, after law enforcement detected smoke and a strong odor of weed on his rented private plane, years before the substance was legalized in New Jersey.

More: Teterboro Airport, built on a Jersey swamp, was travel hub of Jeffrey Epstein's sex traffic ring

In the Nov. 16 case, Spears claimed ownership of the drugs, but investigators alleged that both he and Petrosillo were part of a narcotics conspiracy.

Also aboard the plane were Spears' girlfriend and two other individuals, an exotic dancer and her friend. The dancer, a Maryland resident, allegedly had been offered money to take an Uber from Maryland to New Jersey and claim some of the many bags of luggage as her own. There were no other passengers.

During a search at the time of the arrest, Petrosillo was also found to be carrying three fake New Jersey drivers' licenses and two fake Social Security cards, court documents say. The fake licenses allegedly had Petrosillo's photo with different names, some of which were on the fake cards.

Detained as flight risk

Spears and Petrosillo were indicted in New York this month on five counts of owning and conspiring to distribute narcotics, and possessing false identification documents. They were arrested by the Port Authority police and held in jail on grounds of being a flight risk, given their arrest aboard a privately chartered plane with fake IDs.

Court records say the volume of narcotics found on the plane would be enough to trigger substantial mandatory minimum sentences of at least 10 years.

Spears was prosecuted for a burglary in 2013 and received a four-year sentence, records show.

The cocaine was in black plastic bags in a duffel bag and the marijuana packed into plastic bags in several suitcases, according to photographs taken by authorities. THC cartridges allegedly were found in cardboard boxes, including some labeled "cake."

Surveillance footage showed Spears and Petrosillo arriving separately at a hotel near Teterboro Airport at around 4 a.m. on Nov 16, court documents say. That night they transported luggage, which authorities said matched the bags found on the plane, into the hotel. Less than 12 hours later, they allegedly loaded the bags into three SUVs and headed for the airport.

Petrosillo's hotel receipt showed he had provided a Bangkok address.

Alleged drug smuggling into NJ prison

Spears was identified as a "five-star general" of the Nine Trey Gangsters set of the Bloods street gang in Operation Heat, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General said in a statement released after an investigation it conducted in 2016.

Spears allegedly entered into an alliance with a correctional officer and a member of the Lucchese crime family to smuggle drugs and prepaid cellphones into East Jersey State Prison, where Spears was an inmate at the time.

The investigation into an international criminal gambling enterprise that used extortion and violence to collect debts sent Matthew Madonna, a ruling boss of the Luccheses, to state prison.

Also facing prison time in that case were a New Jersey underboss from the same family, Martin Taccetta of East Hanover; top figure Ralph V. Perna of East Hanover; his sons Joseph M. Perna of Wyckoff and John G. Perna of West Caldwell; and John Mangrella of Clifton, the Attorney General's Office said.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Admitted NJ gangster indicted in Teterboro Airport drug haul