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New York City's Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor announced the indictment of five people, including four who were linked to a wholesale heroin and fentanyl distribution network in the Bronx. The fifth represented a Mexico-based narcotics supply organization.
The alleged ring leader, Juan Silva Santos, of Yonkers, has been charged with operating as a major trafficker under New York State’s drug kingpin statute. Santos allegedly kept some of the drugs at the Monarch at Ridge Hill.
Santos and three others were scheduled to appear in Manhattan Supreme Court for their arraignment. They stand to be charged with conspiracy, operating as a major trafficker, criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminally using drug paraphernalia.
In total, investigators seized nearly 70 pounds of heroin and fentanyl from two locations in the Bronx and Yonkers on Oct. 25 last year. The drugs had a wholesale value of approximately $1.75 million and a street value approaching $10 million, according to the DEA.
On Oct. 25 last year, members of the New York State Drug Enforcement Task Force executed warrants at the Bronx apartment and Santos’ Ridge Hill Boulevard home and an associated storage locker.
Eighteen kilograms of heroin, fentanyl and a fentanyl analogue (chemically similar to fentanyl) were seized from the Bronx apartment. Upon entering the apartment, agents interrupted Then in the process of sealing a kilogram of narcotics with a heat sealer in the kitchen. A second heat sealer was found in the bathtub. Investigators said that heat sealing bags and drug preparation paraphernalia were strewn throughout the apartment. Subsequent laboratory testing indicated that the kilogram Then had been sealing in the kitchen contained fentanyl, a potentially lethal substance.
Additionally, a hidden compartment was found inside the back wall of a closet in a bedroom with another 12 kilograms of heroin and fentanyl. The remaining narcotics were found between the box springs and mattress under a bed in the same bedroom. Next to a bed was a device known as a kilo press that is commonly used to re-shape mixtures of heroin, fentanyl, other narcotics and non-narcotic dilutants into bricks resembling original packaging. A hidden compartment behind a baseboard on a wall contained plates used with the kilo press to make “brand” imprints on the kilograms, including images of a scorpion and Chinese characters.
In Yonkers, agents found approximately $28,000 in cash inside a closet in the master bedroom. The storage locker, which was located in a common area on another floor had an estimated 14 kilograms of heroin and fentanyl inside a suitcase that were pressed into slim packages designed to fit underneath the suitcase lining.
According to officials, the particular fentanyl analogue present in the Bronx apartment, valeryl fentanyl, is not currently included on New York State’s list of controlled substances, but has been linked to multiple overdose deaths in New York City.
“The defendants trafficked in multi-million dollar quantities of potentially lethal opioids. Through a direct connection to Mexico-based suppliers, the distribution network stockpiled heroin, fentanyl and other synthetic opioids in an apartment in the Bronx and in a common storage area of a luxury residential complex in Yonkers,” Special Narcotics Prosecutor Brennan stated. “The types of narcotics seized in this case have fueled New York City’s epidemic of overdose fatalities. Members of the public should beware that ever more potent lethal synthetic substances are increasingly mixed into the drug supply.”
“This highly organized trafficking network based their operations in both the Bronx and Yonkers in order to maximize their reach into surrounding counties,” Special Agent in Charge Ray Donovan added. “By dismantling this organization, we shut down a major supplier of the deadliest drugs on the streets today: heroin and fentanyl.”
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