Nine Trey Bloods ‘general’ busted at NJ airport with cocaine, 500 pounds of weed
NEW YORK — A “five-star general” of the Nine Trey Bloods street gang with ties to the Lucchese crime family has been indicted by a federal grand jury for attempting to get on a private plane to the U.K. with 12 kilos of cocaine, more than 500 pounds of marijuana, 1,000 THC cartridges and fake IDs, according to court filings.
Edwin Spears, 49, known as “Money,” was arrested Nov. 16 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey along with Leonardo Petrosillo, 45, and two women identified as “Individual-1” and “Individual-2” after a search of the Liverpool-bound private plane yielded the cache of drugs in “twelve large luggage bags” and a cardboard box, according to FBI agent Steven Olewnick’s affidavit.
Individual-1, described as “an adult exotic dancer from Maryland” in court documents, was paid to take an Uber from her home state to Teterboro to catch the flight and say some of the luggage was hers. Individual-2 is a friend of the dancer’s, according to court documents.
Spears’ girlfriend was also present but not arrested.
Petrosillo, 45, had three fake New Jersey licenses and two phony Social Security Administration cards on him when he was arrested. The licenses all had the same photo of Petrosillo but with the names of two other people, and the Social Security cards had those two names on them, said prosecutors.
When arrested, Spears claimed all the drugs were his, but federal prosecutors charged both him and Petrosillo with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to export controlled substances, citing surveillance video from a hotel near Teterboro showing the two men pushing a cart loaded with luggage from vehicles to the hotel.
“The luggage is consistent with the luggage in which [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] discovered the narcotics mere hours later,” read a court document.
“As an initial matter, the proof of the defendants’ guilt is overwhelming,” read a memo from federal prosecutors that argued Spears and Petrosillo be remanded during trial. “[T]he defendants were caught red-handed in a chartered private plane to the United Kingdom with significant amounts of controlled substances.”
Spears “has both historical and ongoing ties with members of La Cosa Nostra,” said prosecutors. He was busted in 2007 while serving time in East Jersey State Prison for taking part in a scheme with a corrections officer and Lucchese family members to smuggle drugs and cellphones into the prison, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s office.
The Nine Trey Bloods gang is perhaps best known for being featured in colorful Brooklyn rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine’s videos before one of their members kidnapped the performer, who went on to testify against them in 2019.
The court initially set bail conditions for Spears that included being released on a $500,000 bond with a Florida property said to be owned by his sister put up as collateral. However, prosecutors discovered Spears’ sister is not the sole owner, but a member of a trust that owns the property, and Florida law prohibits the property to be used as collateral.
Spears and Petrosillo remain jailed at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brookyn, according to Bureau of Prisons records. If convicted, they face a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison, said prosecutors.
Lawyers for the two men did not immediately return messages to the Daily News.
