What to Know
- A short-term fentanyl trafficking investigation in New York City ended with authorities finding about 300,000 fake oxycodone pills containing fentanyl, plus five kilograms of powdered fentanyl, from a hidden gas tank of a vehicle that was stopped in the Bronx near a courthouse, federal authorities announced Wednesday.
- Forty-four-year-old Enrique Perez, of Ohio, was subsequently arrested on Sunday and charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first and third degrees.
- The fentanyl discovered carries an estimated street value of approximately $5 million, the City's Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said.
A short-term fentanyl trafficking investigation in New York City ended with authorities finding about 300,000 fake oxycodone pills containing fentanyl, plus five kilograms of powdered fentanyl, from a hidden gas tank of a vehicle that was stopped in the Bronx near a courthouse, federal authorities announced Wednesday.
The fentanyl discovered carries an estimated street value of approximately $5 million, the City's Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said.
“At a time when our city’s overdose rates are at a record high, the discovery of more than eleven pounds of powdered fentanyl and hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills manufactured to look like prescription pills, concealed in the gas tank of a truck near the Bronx Court House, is truly alarming," Brennan said.
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Forty-four-year-old Enrique Perez, of Ohio, was subsequently arrested on Sunday and charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first and third degrees. He was arraigned on Monday, at which time bail was set at $200,000 cash/bond and the condition of geolocation monitoring.
Attorney information for Perez was not immediately known.
Perez's charges stem from a probe in which members of the New York office of the Drug Enforcement Administration were conducting surveillance and stopped a Ford Expedition with Texas license plates on East 161st Street in the Bronx at around 1:39 p.m., according to prosecutors.
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It was then that an NYPD K9 allegedly alerted authorities to presence of narcotics in the vehicle, but agents and officers were unable to pinpoint the exact location.
Prosecutors go on to say that Perez's phone revealed photos of bundles of cash and a hidden gas tank inside the vehicle. It was there that authorities allegedly discovered the astonishing amount of blue fake oxycodone pills containing fentanyl and five kilos, roughly 11 pounds, of powdered fentanyl in vacuum sealed packages.
According to prosecutors, the fentanyl seized is believed to have originated in Mexico and the vehicle has crossed the U.S.-Mexico border multiple times.
This case fits a trafficking pattern seen in recent months in which alleged drug traffickers who reside out-of-state transport large quantities of fentanyl pills and powder to be distributed in New York City. Additionally, according to authorities, the vehicles used have out-of-state license plates and carry loads of narcotics worth a million dollars or more.
“This seizure demonstrates one of the many ways evil drug cartels, like the Sinaloa cartel, smuggle fentanyl from Mexico to major cities like New York for street distribution. While we hit the accelerator on our enforcement efforts, the cartels go to extremes to conceal illicit drugs in implausible spots, like the gas tank of a vehicle," DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank A. Tarentino III said.
