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"Cartel Connections": 600 Pounds Of Cocaine Worth $10 Million Found In Queens Self-Storage Facility

A routine-looking storage facility in Queens was allegedly holding something far more valuable than furniture and moving boxes, according to new reports from the New York Post and NBC New York.

In fact, authorities say they uncovered nearly 600 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $10 million at a self-storage location in Long Island City, resulting in one of New York City’s most significant drug seizures in decades.

The investigation led police to Nelson Salcedo, 35, of Englewood, New Jersey, who was arrested Aug. 26 as authorities say he was preparing to transport another load from the facility. Investigators found 19 cardboard boxes in and around his van containing 230 brick-like packages.

Together, the suspected cocaine weighed approximately 586 pounds.

Photo: NBC New York

Initial testing identified the substance as cocaine, although additional laboratory analysis was still pending. Investigators believe the drugs were part of a much broader distribution network stretching between New Jersey and New York, with the DEA indicating that the supply chain ultimately has cartel connections.

The NY post reported that the case developed from a separate narcotics investigation in New Jersey. Authorities had previously recovered 33 pounds of cocaine, about $170,000 in cash and a firearm in Fort Lee. That investigation eventually put Salcedo on their radar and prompted detectives to begin following his movements.

Prosecutors allege that Salcedo transported boxes from the Long Island City facility on at least two earlier occasions, Aug. 12 and Aug. 19, bringing them to an area near the northern end of Central Park. Investigators moved in when he allegedly returned for another shipment on Aug. 26.

Officials say the quantity recovered suggests the cocaine was destined for further packaging and distribution rather than direct sale in its seized form. The haul represents the NYPD’s biggest cocaine seizure in at least a decade and the largest handled by the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office in more than 20 years.

Three people, including Salcedo, have been arrested in connection with the broader investigation. Another person suspected of receiving previous deliveries had not yet been taken into custody.

Salcedo was arraigned on charges of first- and second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 23:00

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Feedstock Is Not Fuel: Why Venezuelan Crude Is No Near-Term Fix

Authored by former CIA officer Larry Johnson

My friend, Karl Miller, is out with a great piece that exposes Trump’s claims about Venezuelan oil as a massive case of gaslighting. I am summarizing his piece, which is titled,“Venezuela Oil: The Physical Barrel and the Capital Bill,” because it is not publicly available via a link.

On August 27 2026, President Trump announced what he called the biggest oil deal in world history — a US-Venezuela agreement giving the United States majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves, which he said would “substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans.” The pitch landed with gasoline near $4.09 a gallon, about 27% higher than a year earlier and on track for the most expensive August on record, as a six-month Iran war and the Hormuz disruption kept a fifth of world supply under strain — and with the midterms two months away.

Independent analysts noted the arithmetic fails on that timeline: the 30 to 50 million barrels Trump floated is less than half a day of global consumption, the 65 billion is an in-ground estimate rather than available supply, and any price effect would take years. Miller’s briefing goes underneath that objection to the more fundamental one: Venezuelan crude is the wrong substance to fix the shortage Americans feel at the pump. It is not a magical fix. In the near term it is not a fix at all.

The point most likely to be missed

The shortage that bites right now is in product — diesel and jet fuel — and extra-heavy Venezuelan crude is not product. It is refinery feedstock. You cannot relieve a middle-distillate shortage with a barrel that still has to be diluted, blended, upgraded, coked, and hydroprocessed before it yields a usable gallon of anything.

via Reuters

This is why the “turn Venezuela on” reflex fails on its own terms. Even setting aside whether Caracas can produce more, the barrels that already exist do not add supply where the market is tight. Prompt US cargoes would largely be diverted from Venezuela’s current buyers — China, India, Europe — not created on top of global production. That reshuffles refinery slates and trade routes; it does not repair a physical shortage. A barrel moved from a Chinese refiner to a US one is a change of address, not a new barrel, and certainly not a new gallon of jet fuel.

Why the feedstock gap is binding

The nature of the crude is the reason. Roughly three-quarters of Venezuelan production through 2028 is expected to be heavy, extra-heavy, or bitumen, with the Orinoco Belt supplying about 60%. That material is the raw input at the very front of the conversion process; the finished distillate barrel sits many capital-intensive steps downstream — coking and hydroprocessing capacity, hydrogen, refinery uptime, yields, distribution — none of which a cargo of Merey crude supplies.

The price tells the same story: Merey 16 averaged $67.36/bbl in July 2026, about $12.35 under the OPEC basket, the market pricing in the cost of converting this crude into something useful. Venezuela cannot repair a current crude or middle-distillate shortage, because the missing piece was never the crude.

The supply side only reinforces it

Nor can the volume be conjured quickly. July 2026 output was near 1.1 million b/d — about a third of the 3.4 million b/d peak of 1998 — and the system that would lift it has been hollowed out: the EIA documents pipelines over 50 years old, power outages, constrained diluent, and impaired refineries, with PDVSA estimating some $8 billion for pipelines alone. Rystad puts full-cycle breakevens at $70–$80/bbl or higher and its base case adds only about 194,000 b/d through 4Q 2028; a return toward 3 million b/d would take well over $150 billion across 10–15 years.

Large in-ground reserves, Miller stresses, are not deliverable supply — and the 65 billion barrels in the President’s announcement is exactly that kind of number: a resource estimate, not a delivery schedule.

The revealed preference: what the majors already told the White House

The strongest confirmation is not a model but the behavior of the companies that would have to fund the rebuild. At the White House on January 9 2026, shortly after the US removal of Maduro, Trump insisted the industry would spend more than $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s oil sector. The room did not agree. ExxonMobil’s Darren Woods told the President to his face that Venezuela is, as it stands, “uninvestable” — that durable legal frameworks, commercial terms, and stability must come first, and that Exxon would send only a technical team to assess. ConocoPhillips’ Ryan Lance said the system needs major restructuring first; both firms had their assets expropriated under Chávez, and by 30 January both Exxon and Chevron said they had no plans to raise Venezuela spending that year. The figures put before that meeting matched Miller’s: Rystad estimated roughly $110 billion merely to double output by 2030, and closer to $185 billion to climb back toward 2000-era levels.

Also, Paul Saladino: "We have to deal with all the issues of collapsed infrastructure and a failed state."

We absolutely under no circumstances will be refilling the SPR with Venezuelan crude.

It’s the heaviest, most sour oil on earth. We tried to inject very heavy oil into the SPR once in the 80s. It was an epic disaster, broke the system, and has to be removed. And that was Mexican…

— Paul Saladino (@PaulSaladino7) August 31, 2026

The one enthusiast underscores the point. Chevron — the sole US major already producing there, at nearly 250,000 b/d under a special license — says it could raise flows about 50% in under two years, but even that lifts Venezuela’s total only to just above 1.1 million b/d, against a peak near 4 million. Smaller entrants like Hunt Oil and SLB signed the first fresh PDVSA deals in August, but the supermajors best equipped to finance a rebuild are, on the record, declining to write the checks. When the people holding the capital call a resource uninvestable, it is not a near-term supply solution.

Venezuela is a long-duration heavy-crude redevelopment option, not an emergency supply source — and specifically not a fuel solution. Existing cargoes can be rerouted, but that changes trade maps without adding a net barrel or a finished gallon; meaningful new production is years and well over a hundred billion dollars away, and the firms who would fund it have said so out loud. Whatever the “biggest oil deal in world history” is worth over a decade, it will not lower the price of diesel or jet fuel this year. The distillate shortage will not be solved in Caracas.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 22:35

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See all the best looks from the night.

See all the best looks from the night.

The back-to-school season is an exciting time, when everything is new and filled with opportunity. For Jewish college students at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, though, the thrill of the new year is tinged with fear. 

When it comes to the brouhaha over USC’s attendance at its season opener, Lincoln Riley has entered the chat. And the Trojans coach didn’t agree with much of what was being said elsewhere. “Yeah, I mean, listen, this is USC, right?” Riley said Tuesday in his first public comments since an announced crowd of only...

No apology, no problem.

"Rich Dad Poor Dad" Author Robert Kiyosaki Claims He’s In $1.2 Billion In Debt

Best-selling Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki said he owes a whopping $1.2 billion tied to his extensive real estate holdings, the New York Post reported.

Kiyosaki made the admission during a wide-ranging interview on the "Get Rich Education" podcast.

"So, I'm a billion two in debt," he said. "But I studied it since 1974... If you're going to learn to use debt, you'd better take some education."

However, Kim Kiyosaki, the financial self-help guru's former wife, told Vanity Fair the figure was blown out of proportion.

"We have a lot of apartment houses with our partners," Kim Kiyosaki said. "So technically, yes, we have all this debt."

"He loves to say things that shock," she added.

Vanity Fair reported that the pair's individual investments are held in separate limited liability companies, insulating them from one another if one runs into trouble.

Robert Kiyosaki told the magazine the same structure is used to keep those investments apart.

"If it all comes to hell, you can talk to my attorney," he said. "Firewalls - that's the way the rich play the game."

John Poole, who runs JPTD Partners, an acquisition consulting firm, told the Post that Kiyosaki's strategy is far more risky than the best-selling author is leading on.

"I think there's good debt and there's bad debt, and then there's $1.2 billion of debt, which you better know exactly what in the world you're doing," Poole explained. "Leverage works beautifully on the way up, and if it's not continuing on that way up, then it's like a chainsaw financially coming down."

"It doesn't go on forever. There has to be a payday, and be prepared for that payday, irrespective of the size," he added. "[Kiyosaki] may call this the 'Rich Dad debt,' but for the average investor, it could turn out to be 'Poor Dad bankruptcy' really quickly."

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 22:10

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