Everyone from the local cops to U.S. postal inspectors was involved in a drug bust in Boston, the Suffolk County DA’s office said as it announced the arrests of several people who are behind bars on high bail.
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office announced two different busts that resulted in the seizure of “large amounts of fentanyl and cocaine”: one on River Street in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood, and the other in Revere.
In the Hub, 33-year-old Rahelin Reynoso, 44-year-old Quenty Ogando and 31-year-old Erika Prado all were charged with trafficking fentanyl out of a house at 43 River St.
The warrant served Tuesday involved U.S. Postal inspectors, Department of Homeland Security agents, Massachusetts State Police and Boston Police, according to Hayden’s office, and they discovered about 100 pounds of fentanyl in powder and pill form, about $2.25 million worth, per the release. In addition, cops found “three industrial-sized pill press machines, multiple sealed and labeled US priority-mail envelopes containing various amounts of pills and assorted packaging materials.”
The DA’s office said “the defendants admitted to police their involvement in fentanyl distribution and said that they would spend hours each day locked in the apartment manufacturing, packaging and mailing the fentanyl in pill form.”
Judge Thomas Kaplanes ordered Reynoso and Ogando held on $100,000 bail each and Prado on $50,000 bail, and ordered all to surrender their passports. The three will return to court December 9 for a probable cause hearing.
In Chelsea District Court, Elizaul Landestoy Sanchez, 34, of Revere, is charged with counts relating to dealing cocaine and fentanyl.
He’s behind bars on $100,000 bail after “a joint task force consisting of Revere and Lynn police, DEA agents and Massachusetts State Police executed a search warrant at 58 School Street in Revere and seized more than 509 grams of cocaine and more than 26 grams of fentanyl.”
Some of the drugs, Hayden’s office said, “were found in a children’s bedroom.”
Sanchez, per the office, has a “significant criminal record” that includes state prison time for drug trafficking.
“Both of these operations took major amounts of dangerous drugs off the streets and disrupted a sophisticated fentanyl manufacturing and distribution operation involving pill shipments via the mail system,” Hayden said in a statement. “Every state in the nation has experienced the devastating effects of fentanyl so operations like these are necessary and important.”
