'Supreme Team' Drug Kingpin James Corley Arrested By NYPD

After a 15-month undercover investigation that used wiretaps and surveillance, the NYPD finally arrested drug dealer James Corley, who's been in the narcotics game since the 1980s.

According to Huffington Post, James Corley, 51, was charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance and other drug charges along with 44 other people, known as "The Supreme Team."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Corley supplied cocaine to a second gang called the South Side Bloods, and low-level dealers grossed about $15,000 a week in drug sales. Authorities also suggest that Corley used at least eight different phones,due to being burned by a wiretap op before.

Corley came of age during the crack era of the late 1980s and was an associate of the Supreme Team, which controlled housing projects and corners in Queens, the ground zero of the crack epidemic in New York. Crime was rampant; in 1990, the number of murders hit an all-time high of 2,245.

Gangland fans know The Supreme Team through its legendary gang leader Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, who reputedly funneled drug money into Irv Gotti's Murder Inc. McGriff now serving life without parole for a pair of murders after a 2007 conviction.

See why crime never pays?