More than 40 pounds of fentanyl – valued at $1.5 million – were seized from a drug mill running about six blocks from the Bronx day care where a 1-year-old boy died after being poisoned by the lethal opioid, officials said Thursday.
The drug operation was uncovered at an apartment on Heath Avenue in Kingsbridge after law enforcement busted one of the alleged traffickers – who toted dozens of bricks of fentanyl in a suitcase on the subway, according to federal and local authorities.
“The conduct charged is shockingly brazen, especially in a city still grieving the overdose death of a young child who lost his life at a nearby daycare center,” said NYC Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan in a statement.
“The defendant is charged with transporting almost 30 pounds of fentanyl bricks in a rolling suitcase on a subway, through a subway station, and on the sidewalks of a busy Bronx neighborhood,” Brennan said.
The accused drug-runner, Juan Gabriel Herrera Vargas, 42, was spotted by NYPD officers and federal agents carrying a small black bag to the Kingsbridge Road subway station at around 4:40 p.m. – and then emerging at around 6 p.m., heading back to the Heat Avenue apartment building pulling a black and tan rolling suitcase, officials said.
“The investigators approached him as he came up from the subway,” a law enforcement source said. “He gave the investigators his wallet and ID, and then he fled leaving the suitcase with 13 kilos of fentanyl.”
Heath Avenue near West Kingsbridge Road, officials said.
He then allegedly jumped over a fence to get back to the building that housed the drug mill via a back entrance, the source said.
The agents and officers spotted Vargas leaving the apartment building again around 8:40 p.m., pulling a blue rolling suitcase with a red stripe in the middle, authorities said.
They arrested him on the spot and discovered about 50,000 glassines – envelopes known to be used to package drugs – wrapped together into 25 larger packages inside the suitcase, officials said.
Investigators searched the apartment around 11 p.m., and found one kilogram of suspected fentanyl, six pounds of loose powder, 10,000 filled glassines, as well as other materials used for packaging drugs – such as grinders, scales, glassines, stamps and rubber bands, authorities said.
The fentanyl seized carries an estimated street value of $1.5 million, officials said.
The items were all discovered inside the back bedroom, where investigators also found a glass table set up for packaging narcotics, and bright lights.
Another bedroom was filled with “additional paraphernalia,” as well as a large TV monitor that was connected to a security camera to monitor the apartment, officials said.
Large plastic trash bags covered the apartment windows, blocking the view from the outside, authorities said.
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, officials said.
“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 day care,” US Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino said in a statement.
“Trafficking organizations use these toxic mills to prepare and package bulk drugs into street-ready glassines for distribution for one reason – profit.”
Four people have been hit with federal charges over the fentanyl-related death of little Nicholas Feliz Dominici at the Divino Niño Daycare in Kingsbridge.
Authorities allege the defendants – including the day care owner, Grei Mendez, and her husband Felix Herrera, who lived next door – ran a fentanyl-peddling operation out of the basement facility, leading to the tot’s death and to three other children being injured on Sept. 15.
