Like father, like son.
Cops said that Ricardo McKendrick Sr., 56, a reputed member of the Black Mafia of the ’70s, and Ricardo McKendrick Jr, 36, were arrested Tuesday in connection with what they believed to be the largest cocaine seizure in the history of the city.
Cops seized about 274 kilograms of cocaine, worth about $28 million, and about $58,000 in cash from the McKendrick duo, who they said were responsible for distributing large amounts of coke to the Philadelphia area.
Acting on a tip, members of the Philadelphia Narcotics Bureau and the FBI set up surveillance on Ricardo McKendrick Sr.’s home on Federal Street near 26th in Grays Ferry for several weeks, with the most intensive period of surveillance taking place three days before the arrest.
Shortly before 8 Tuesday night, investigators saw Ricardo McKendrick Jr. leave his father’s house, and when police stopped him in the area of 23rd and Wharton and executed a search warrant on his car, they found $53,000 in his car.
“Because of the totality of the circumstances and the credibility of the information that we had, we secured a search warrant for the house,” said Chief Inspector William Blackburn of the Narcotics Bureau.
Police found approximately 264 kilograms of cocaine in the basement, about 10 kilos in the living room, a .38-caliber revolver, packaging materials, machines used for making bricks of cocaine and about $5,000, Blackburn said.
After the raid on Federal Street, FBI agents had information that led them to a home in Woodstown, N.J., where they seized a car with 15 duffel bags full of cash, which had not been counted yet.
At a news conference yesterday in the Narcotics Bureau headquarters in Hunting Park, Blackburn was joined by Mayor Nutter, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, FBI Special Agent in Charge Janice Fedarcyk, U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan and some of the officers instrumental in the seizure.
“All of this activity is what leads, unfortunately, to the daily death and destruction on our streets,” Nutter said.
“It is why people are actively engaged in some illegal activities that result in shootings and homicides. It’s about drugs, it’s about turf, it’s about money.
“Philadelphians and people in the region will be safer as a result of the efforts of the men and women who are here today, who go out on a daily basis risking their lives to make all of us safer,” Nutter added. *
Philly.com
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