NYPD: Drug gang has been dismantled

An 8-year-old boy served as a lookout for an East Harlem gang that sold illegal drugs including angel dust to buyers from the city, Long Island and elsewhere, police said yesterday.

The child, who is now under city care, is related to a member of the gang dismantled by police in a 15-month undercover probe targeting the sale of large quantities of the drug phencyclidine.

Also known to experts as PCP and "embalming fluid," phencyclidine became a popular illegal drug in the 1960s, but it is notorious because it leads to bouts of paranoia, hallucinations and violence, said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.

One of the ring's customers from the Bronx died on Sunday when her clothing caught fire while she was smoking the PCP she had just purchased, said Kelly at a news conference at NYPD headquarters to announce the arrests of most of the gang's 35 members.

The death of Hilda Santiago, 38, was "emblematic of the destructive, addictive power of angel dust," Kelly said.

"Even as this neighborhood has improved over the years, drug sales in the last 15 months had attracted addicts from other boroughs, Long Island and New Jersey, and as far away as Vermont," explained Kelly, who said gang profits were around $1 million a year.

Demand was so high for the PCP, heroin and cocaine sold by the crew that lines formed in the courtyard of the Milbank-Frawley Houses, the center of the operation at East 117th Street and Madison Avenue, according to Kelly.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. told reporters that two of the key suspects in the drug operation were brothers Lamont "Big Bro" Moultrie, 41, and Bernard "Little Bro" Moultrie, 39, who lived in the area. They are charged with conspiracy and major drug trafficking, which could get them life in prison if convicted, Vance said. They were allegedly aided by Melvin Tarleton, 45, who also faces drug conspiracy charges, Vance said.

Among the items found yesterday during police searches was 2.5 gallons of liquid PCP that police said was delivered by regular mail and FedEx carriers who were unaware of the illicit goods. PCP has been produced illegally since 1965, according to drug websites. The gang sold PCP by spraying it onto vegetable matter such as spearmint, police said.

Kelly was reluctant to go into detail about the 8-year-old lookout, apparently so as not to identify the boy further. The child was one of several lookouts used by the gang, and was a nephew of one of the adult suspects, said NYPD inspector Lori Pollock. The city Administration for Children's Services has custody of the boy, Pollock said.