The 234 Apartment

LEWISTON — A Brooklyn man was indicted on drug charges this week, accused of selling the fentanyl investigators say has been linked to several drug overdoses in recent months. Nera James, 38, was indicted on a dozen counts, including aggravated drug trafficking , and trafficking in counterfeit drugs. Investigators say James, using the street name "King," sold dope from an apartment at 91 Walnut St., offering the drugs as heroin when it was in fact fentanyl. Police said he also met customers in tenement hallways on Pierce, Walnut, Nichols and other streets in the downtown area. According to court documents, James' fentanyl was linked to so many drug overdoses in the area that some local drug users refused to use it. On Dec. 20, 2016, police and drug agents stopped James as he was walking on Shawmut Street. Investigators said James was carrying a shopping bag which contained a sock filled with rice, a common way of storing heroin to avoid moisture. Inside the sock, acco...

Johnson Chrome was a notorious big spender with a taste for bottle service , bespoke suits and $10,000 shoes. The source of his wealth? A sophisticated identity theft scheme that may have conned Torontonians out of millions. The untold story of the city’s most wanted fraudster Photographs: All portraits via Facebook; background by iStock T he fraudster who called himself Johnson Chrome liked to sit on a bench at the intersection of Hazelton and Yorkville, smoking a Montecristo Edmundo robusto and talking about fashion, cars and cigars to anyone who’d listen. He was charming and handsome, with a neatly trimmed beard , a shaved head and perfect teeth. The perch placed him at the centre of the rarefied universe he’d come to inhabit. His condo, in the former Four Seasons hotel, was steps to the west, and he parked his black Jaguar at the Hazelton Hotel opposite . His gym, the sleek Equinox, was a minute’s walk northwest; his preferred cigar shop , La Casa del Habano , was to the sout...