The driver, identified by authorities as 46-year-old
During the stop, the trooper became suspicious of criminal activity — the driver stated that he and his passenger, 52-year-old Nelson Nunez, were driving an empty truck and could not say what their previous load was. He did not have an electronic log and did not seem to mind that the trooper was placing them out of service, according to the records.
Court records say that the trooper asked to search the truck, then located a concealed compartment underneath the refrigeration unit inside the trailer.
Inside he found dozens of foil-wrapped packages….lab testing confirmed the substance — all 118 pounds of it — was fentanyl, which he said would be worth more than $20 million on the street.
Genao-Minaya and Nunez, both from New Jersey, were arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, a felony that carries a maximum of 20 years in prison, according to court documents. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/25/inside-a-semi-truck-in-nebraska-troopers-found-enough-fentanyl-to-kill-26-million-people/?utm_term=.270c87385af1
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3-27-2018 For a high-level dealer,
Mexican trafficking groups are attempting to turn New York into their distribution hub, and fentanyl is now their main product. The amount of fentanyl seized by the Special Narcotics Prosecutor in New York rose from 35 pounds in 2016 to 491 pounds last year. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/03/27/suspected-drug-kingpin-charged-with-trafficking-enough-fentanyl-to-kill-10-million-people/?utm_term=.2ed0e7319d0f
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several suitcases loaded with brick-shaped bundles of what appeared to be heroin. But lab tests determined that most of it — 141 pounds — was pure fentanyl, a synthetic and supremely dangerous opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin. It was the largest fentanyl seizure in U.S. history. There was enough inside the apartment to kill 32 million people, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The married couple who were arrested,
Solis, 52, had no criminal record in the United States. They had flown to New York a few weeks earlier with Mexican passports. They had no weapons.
But they were drug cartel emissaries, investigators said, sent to broker the sale of tens of millions of dollars' worth of narcotics, like pharmaceutical executives on a business trip. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/at-the-new-york-division-of-fentanyl-inc-a-banner-year/2017/11/13/c3cce108-be83-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html?utm_term=.68e51bd25c1d
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Mexican traffickers are sending fentanyl through the U.S. interstate highway system, not the postal service, and in quantities that dwarf the amounts arriving in envelopes.
They smuggle it across the border in fake vehicle panels or commercial loads of produce, furniture, auto parts and other cargo, driving it across the country from California and Arizona.
The loads arrive at industrial parks in New Jersey, where cartel emissaries are sent to meet the shipments and oversee wholesale transactions….
Last month, narcotics agents arrested a Mexican driver in an industrial area of the Bronx with 37 pounds of fentanyl in the back of a delivery truck. The location was not far from a hotel where, in June, they seized 40 pounds of the drug stashed in a duffel bag.
-Nearly 20 pounds of fentanyl and heroin were seized from a $4,000-a-month apartment overlooking Central Park in August. The building appeared in episodes of the sitcom “Seinfeld.” (Yana Paskova/For The Washington Post)
Like the couple in Queens, traffickers appear to be avoiding high-crime neighborhoods where they might be at greater risk of being robbed or detected. DEA agents in August found 20 pounds of fentanyl and heroin at a $4,000-a-month apartment overlooking Central Park. The building's exterior had appeared in episodes of the sitcom "Seinfeld" as the apartment of the Elaine Benes character.
Inside, a Dominican drug gang was blending fentanyl and heroin in coffee grinders …And in some major New York drug cases, prosecutors say, their U.S. trafficking partners have been forced to send relatives to Mexico as insurance in case a deal goes bad. One major heroin dealer sent his own son.
Although the opioid boom hasn't led to more violence in New York, it has produced a staggering amount of death. The city had nearly 1,400 fatal overdoses last year, a 46 percent increase from 2015. Fentanyl showed up in 44 percent of autopsies….
The sales representatives who reach New York, communicating with encrypted software such as Silent Circle and Signal, are typically nameless figures whom narcotics agents have never seen. And in a matter of days or weeks, they're gone.
In June, when Arroyo's team seized 40 pounds of pure fentanyl at the Umbrella Hotel in the Bronx borough of New York, they arrested Carlos Ramirez, 25. He wore thick glasses, shorts and sneakers.
Carlos Ramirez, 25, appears in security camera footage at the Bronx hotel where he was arrested in June. He is accused of having 40 pounds of pure fentanyl in a black duffel bag. Ramirez had stayed at the hotel on previous occasions, telling staff members that he was from the state of Sinaloa, home to Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel. (Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York/Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/at-the-new-york-division-of-fentanyl-inc-a-banner-year/2017/11/13/c3cce108-be83-11e7-af84-d3e2ee4b2af1_story.html?utm_term=.3264d9ecb1e0
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