Horse Thievery

It was perhaps the most humiliating incident in the history of the nation's largest police department. First, New York City Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy announced that 57 lbs. of confiscated heroin was missing from the property-storage room. The next day it developed that an additional 24 Ibs. had disappeared. Estimated illicit retail value: $15 million or more. The cache constituted the bulk of the heroin seized in the 1962 case upon which the film The French Connection was based.

All signs pointed to an inside job.

A recent lab analysis of the vault's contents showed that much of the heroin had been replaced by innocuous white powder, while ten pounds had been stolen with no effort at substitution. Murphy promised a tightening of security measures, but he may be closing the barn door after the horse has gone. According to police forms, the officer officially responsible for some of the heroin's removal (although there is evidence his signature was forged) was Detective Joseph Nunziatta, who killed himself with his own revolver last March after being questioned by federal agents. In any event, the caper underscored the archaic inefficiency of police procedures. It showed why local forces have such a difficult time keeping ahead of organized crime, which probably instigated the horse thievery.

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