NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Officers arrested a 42-year-old man after they recovered over 40 pounds of suspected fentanyl in the Bronx on Tuesday evening.
This seizure occurred six blocks away from DaNino Nino Day Care, where a one-year old child died after fentanyl exposure and three other children were sickened.
Officials arrested Juan Gabriel Herrera Vargas on Tuesday, Sept. 26 after surveillance was conducted on Heath Avenue in the Bronx.
At approximately 4:40 p.m., Herrera Vargas was observed carrying a small black bag to the Kingsbridge Road subway station. Agents tracked him as he travelled south and later made a northbound return trip on the subway.
At approximately 6:00 p.m., Herrera Vargas was seen exiting the Kingsbridge Road station and walking towards an apartment building at 2800 Heath Ave., pulling a black and tan rolling suitcase.
Officers approached and identified themselves to Herrera Vargas at approximately 6:15 p.m. and Herrera Vargas handed agents his wallet and identification and ran away, eluding law enforcement, and leaving the rolling suitcase behind.
Agents observed 13 rectangular shaped kilogram bricks of suspected fentanyl in the black and tan rolling suitcase.
Agents and officers seized the 13 kilograms of suspected fentanyl and maintained surveillance on 2800 Heath Ave.
At approximately 8:40 p.m. Herrera Vargas was observed exiting apartment 1J at the location while pulling a blue rolling suitcase with a red stripe in the middle.
Herrera Vargas was arrested and authorities seized approximately 50,000 glassines wrapped together into 25 larger packages from inside the suitcase.
Herrera Vargas was charged with operating as a major trafficker, criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first and third degrees, and criminally using drug paraphernalia in the second Degree.
Agents conducted a search of the apartment at approximately 11:00 p.m., where one kilogram of suspected fentanyl, six pounds of loose powder, 10,000 filled glassines and materials used for packaging glassines such as grinders, scales, glassines, stamps and rubber bands were recovered.
The fentanyl and packaging materials were found in the back bedroom which also contained a glass table set up for packaging narcotics and bright lights.
The second bedroom contained additional paraphernalia along with a large TV monitor that was connected to a security camera to monitor the apartment.
Officials also observed the apartment windows were taped up with large black plastic trash bags to ensure nothing was visible from the outside.
The suspected fentanyl is believed to carry an estimated street value of $1.5 million. The results of DEA laboratory analysis on the narcotics seized are pending.
“The public outcry after the poisoning death of a toddler was not enough to stop a drug mill from operating just six blocks away from that Daycare," DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino said. "Trafficking organizations use these toxic mills to prepare and package bulk drugs into street-ready glassines for distribution for one reason- profit. Mills lurk throughout our city in apartments, basements or even under floorboards and that is why DEA and our law enforcement partners don’t stop working. Herrera Vargas took danger one step further and wheeled over 40 pounds of fentanyl around the city and on the subway with no regard to public safety."