10 jailed in Central Florida heroin gang bust, agents say
The recent bust of a group of Orange County heroin dealers marks a change in the way federal agents are going after the deadly drug. They’re hitting the streets. Known for its ability to attack large-scale importers and drug traffickers, Drug Enforcement Administration agents on Tuesday said they’re switching things up in their fight against heroin to focus on the problem at a more local level.
They announced the switch Wednesday morning at a news conference alongside law-enforcement leaders from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Orlando Police Department and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which helped with the latest bust.
The nearly year-long investigation came to a close Tuesday when agents raided an east Orange County home and arrested 10 peo-
ple accused of distributing up to 2 kilograms of heroin (4.4 pounds) onto local streets each month.
The group made an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 a month selling the drug, sometimes dealing to hundreds of users a day, agents said.
Many of the dealers were convicted felons and had previously served time in prison for drug trafficking charges, said Jeff Walsh, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA’s Central Florida district.
One of the people arrested was a 74-year-old wheelchair-bound woman, who Walsh said was a “prominent distributor,” working in the house agents raided on Bowmaster Court.
He said Ruth Perez-Lopez was “unsuspecting,” but her arrest was unsettling for agents.
“She’s an elderly lady and I’m sure if you met her she would seem very nice and all, but she was in a house with loaded weapons,” he said.
A man who spent12 years in prison on murder charges was also arrested, officials said.
Walsh said the group’s main base — the home on Bowmaster Court, about a mile from the intersection of Curry Ford Road and Goldenrod Road — was
“pretty nice” and “not a place you would worry about this sort of thing.”
He said neighbors thanked agents Tuesday after the raid and arrests.
That gesture speaks to what the DEA is trying to do with their new investigation technique, Walsh said, and shows just how important it is to stop heroin before it reaches an epidemic level.
Orange County Chief Deputy Nancy Brown said heroin has been “back on the rise,” for about three years.
This time, though, it’s more lethal and accessible, she said. And the Sheriff’s
Office isn’t giving up the fight.
“Our main goal is to take these dealers off the street that are selling this poison to our children, our families, our friends and people in our community,” she said.
Walsh said the rise is most likely because of the intense crackdown on prescription pills a few years ago.
The pills started to disappear but the demand for opiates didn’t, he said, so users turned to the cheap, more readily — available heroin.
“We anticipated this when we started getting a handle on prescription
pills,” he said.
Heroin can cost less than $10 a dose — much cheaper than a single prescription pill, according to the DEA.
The problem with heroin, though, is that the dealers are typically more violent, Walsh said.
And that’s why they’re trying to get a handle on it now.
“It’s the level of disregard for human decency and rule of law and their willingness to go to great lengths — whatever it takes — to protect their enterprise,” he said. “That’s the scariest thing of all.”