Jesus Cabrera, a/k/a “Gee,” was sentenced on Tuesday, Jan. 14, to 30 years in prison for leading a drug trafficking ring that sold deadly fentanyl in The Bronx, federal prosecutors said. As reported, Cabrera previously pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and fentanyl analogue, and to a related firearms count.

As part of his guilty plea, prosecutors said he admitted that the drug trafficking ring resulted in the August 2021 death of Malik Rahman after he overdosed on drugs, allegedly distributed by the drug ring, which were smuggled into a cell in the 40th Precinct where Rahman was being held for a separate offense, as reported by The NY Daily News at the time. The drug ring’s products were also recovered from the scenes of seven other fatal fentanyl poisonings in 2021. The 40th southernmost precinct in the borough of the Bronx serves Port Morris, Mott Haven, and Melrose.

Edward Y. Kim, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the sentencing on Tuesday, saying, “Jesus Cabrera led a drug trafficking organization that sold enormous amounts of deadly fentanyl in New York City, which led to the deaths of at least eight victims in The Bronx in 2021, and affected countless others in our community. Today’s sentence and those imposed to date on Cabrera’s co-conspirators send a loud message to fentanyl traffickers that their actions will be met with dire consequences in this District.”

He added, “I commend the work of the DEA, NYPD, and the career prosecutors and investigators of this Office who have worked tirelessly to hold accountable those who seek to flood our community with this deadly drug and to profit from addiction and tragedy.”

According to court records, between 2019 and February 2022 approximately, the drug ring operated principally on a block on 142nd Street between Brook Avenue and St. Ann’s Avenue in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx (the “Set”), where the drug ring’s members sold fentanyl glassines in bulk to dealers who then re-distributed it on the Set and in other areas of The Bronx.

Members of the drug ring also sold individual glassines of fentanyl to users struggling with addiction who lined up on the Set on an almost daily basis. Cabrera was the undisputed leader of the ring, and co-defendant Michael Amaya, a/k/a “Miz,” worked as Cabrera’s second in command, managing and overseeing the drug ring’s various street-level dealers, baggers, and lookouts, including the other defendants charged in this case.

The court heard that every day, members of the drug ring, at Cabrera’ direction, and often in his presence, packaged their product in residential apartments for distribution on the Set. They then relied on a roster of street-level dealers to push massive amounts of its deadly product into the community. Indeed, in the fall and winter of 2021 alone, the drug ring distributed an estimated five to six kilograms of fentanyl per month, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit for the ring members.

The drug ring frequently used a signature “stamp” on the glassines of fentanyl it sold, a step Cabrera took to continue making money at the expense of the victims and families affected by the ring’s drug dealing and the opioid epidemic across the country. For many months, the ring stamped its glassines with a “Supreme” logo. Starting in or around December 2021, the ring began using an “Off White” logo, and then switched to a “Thriller” logo.

Despite Cabrera’s awareness of the potential deadly impact of fentanyl, he and the other ring members continued pushing their product. Indeed, when Cabrera was asked by another ring member whether people were overdosing from their product, he laughed it off and said, “Nah man.. people hating, they don’t want us making money.”

On or about August 25, 2021, one of Cabrera and Amaya’s co-defendants, Alberto Concepcion, sold a quantity of loose Supreme-stamped glassines to an individual on the Set (“Individual-1”), who subsequently provided one of those glassines to Rahman. Rahman died from an overdose shortly after ingesting the substances in the Supreme-stamped glassine, the residue of which later tested positive for, among other things, fentanyl and fentanyl analogue.

Both Cabrera and Amaya were directly involved in overseeing Concepcion’s narcotics sales at that time. Indeed, in the days leading up to Rahman’s fatal overdose, Cabrera and Amaya exchanged text messages referencing certain quantities of narcotics that were going to Concepcion for resale on the Set, as well as the cut of the over $110,000 in recent drug ring proceeds they were going to provide to Concepcion.

Including Rahman’s fatal overdose, between in or around March 2021 and in or around December 2021, there were at least eight confirmed fatal overdoses in The Bronx at which the drug ring’s Supreme-stamped glassines were found on the scene.

In addition to the prison term, Cabrera, 46, of The Bronx was sentenced to five years of supervised release. Many of his co-defendants, who were also members of the ring, have also been sentenced after having been convicted of participating in the same fentanyl trafficking conspiracy to which Cabrera pled guilty.

Amaya, who managed the ring’s daily operations and reported to Cabrera, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Willie Harris, a/k/a “Light,” who was one of the drug rings armed lookouts and dealers, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Meanwhile, Frankie Capellan, a/k/a “Nitty,” who helped package the drug ring’s product with Cabrera and others, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Jose Figueroa, a/k/a “Chelo,” one of the drug ring’s street-level dealers, was also sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Kim praised what he described as the outstanding investigative work of the NYPD, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the New York/New Jersey High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area intelligence analysts for their support and assistance in the case, along with The Bronx District Attorney’s Office. The case is being handled by the narcotics unit of the federal prosecutors Office of the Southern District of New York. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew J. King, Kaylan E. Lasky, and David J. Robles are leading the prosecution.