There's no business like snow business — not in Times Square, where over 100 pounds of cocaine were seized in a dramatic drug gang takedown, officials said today.
The drugs were recovered from three rolling suitcases that were wheeled out of the Crowne Plaza Hotel like so much tourist luggage, with cops swooping in from their surveillance posts to bust six accused coke traffickers who'd turned the neighborhood into the Great White Way, authorities said.
The drugs, seized on Oct. 25, totaled 48 kilos and would have been worth $5 million on the street, officials estimated.
The six alleged traffickers have been indicted on conspiracy and drug possession, according to Bridget Brennan, the city's Special Narcotics Prosecutor, and Joseph D'Amico, Superintendent of the state police, whose offices collaborated on the investigation.
State cops conducting surveillance at the hotel watched as at shortly after 6 p.m. Fernando Alvarado, 23, of The Bronx, left the hotel with a suitcase — later discovered to be holding 30 pounds of coke -- and placed it in the trunk of a waiting silver BMW, officials said.