Prosecutors said Thursday that the drug-dealing duo ran a cocaine “delivery service” from Brooklyn to Montauk, catering to upscale Hamptons customers willing to pay three times the street price for the powdered drug.
According to prosecutors and the 74-count indictment filed against the pair, Alexander Dyatin and Michael Khodorkovsky hid cocaine and MDMA in Mercedes cars packed with “traps,” a type of secret compartment used to smuggle drugs, and sold the illegal goods to wealthy customers on the eastern end of Long Island.
“The cocaine was being sold for essentially three times the normal street price,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said. “It was a lucrative business for them until they were arrested.”
The cocaine case, allegedly orchestrated by Diatyn, 38, and Khodorkovsky, 44, was one of five recent high-profile, unrelated drug and firearms trafficking cases that Tierney covered during a lengthy news conference.
The pair were arrested Aug. 2 after an undercover operation involving drug sales near Khodorkovsky's Brooklyn apartment, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Khodorkovsky had 1.5 kilos of cocaine in his possession when police arrested him, as well as cocaine and pills hidden in a “boat trap” in his car, and $38,550 in cash and 39 gold coins worth $100,000 in his Brooklyn apartment, Tierney said.
Prosecutors said 589 grams of cocaine were found in nearly twice the amount of individual packages in Diatch's rented East Hampton home, along with 269 grams of MDMA and $19,046 in cash, and more than 50 envelopes of cocaine were found in Diatch's Mercedes.
According to law enforcement sources, a packet of less than a gram of cocaine sells for about $50 on the street, meaning Dyatin and Khodorkovsky's alleged clients were paying more than $150.
Investigators discovered that the pair, who each owned a Mercedes and worked as private ride-share and Uber drivers, met with clients at upscale Hamptons establishments including the Montauk Yacht Club and Rosie's Eatery, then made the deals in their luxury cars, the Daily Mail reported. First reported.
The two were arraigned on Aug. 16 and ordered held on $2 million bail.
This case was not the only major bust Tierney covered, as he also detailed cases involving illegal firearms and fatal fentanyl overdoses.
He said 39 indictments and 389 criminal counts had been issued in five cases.
“These are five separate networks that are not connected, but they are five separate tentacles, so to speak,” he told reporters.
The cases include one involving a cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking ring in which suspect Brandon Scanlon, 33, allegedly fled after a drug seizure in April, hit a Suffolk County police officer with a minivan, leading officers into a Hollywood-style shootout and chase.
“Scanlon appears to have fired multiple rounds at officers,” Tierney said. “Scanlon fired the gun sideways, across his abdomen and with a lit cigarette in his mouth, through the open window of his vehicle. It was captured on video and we can see that.”
Scanlon was charged with attempted murder, and prosecutors have filed drug-related charges against 14 others in connection to the incident, records show.
