$1 million worth
Lucky bust turns police onto stash of heroin
Friday, April 27, 2007 6:52 AM
By John Futty

http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/conten ... oin27.html

The Columbus Dispatch
Federal agents were expecting to arrest a suspected drug dealer Tuesday night when they trailed him from Cincinnati to an apartment complex in Columbus.

What they weren’t expecting was to stumble upon a large supply of heroin in one of the apartments after confronting a Columbus man who was with the suspect.

"Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good," said Anthony Marotta, assistant special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Agents found 4.4 kilos or just less than 10 pounds of heroin, with a street value estimated at nearly $1 million, in the apartment on Spring Rock Circle, west of Cleveland Avenue and north of Dublin-Granville Road, Marotta said.

"That’s a huge seizure," he said. "That would be considered a major seizure in Miami, Chicago, New York or L.A."

The resident of the apartment, Tomas Pulido Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, is charged with one count of drug possession with intent to distribute and one count of conspiracy. He is scheduled for a detention hearing this morning in U.S. District Court, where a magistrate will decide whether to continue holding him in the Franklin County jail.

Agents obtained a search warrant for Gonzalez’s apartment after they found him with the Cincinnati suspect in a car at the North Side complex. Gonzalez, whose age was not released, was carrying a small amount of heroin, Marotta said.

Gonzalez also was carrying three cell phones, which kept ringing with callers wanting to make a drug buy. Agents reported finding a .22-caliber rifle with a scope in the apartment.

Heroin is a growing problem among drug addicts in central Ohio, said Paul Coleman, president and chief executive officer at Maryhaven, a drug, alcohol and mental-health treatment center.

"We have seen a 30 percent increase in the number of patients presenting with heroin dependency in the last year," Coleman said. "It’s a pretty dramatic increase."

He attributed the increase to a growing supply of heroin in the community.

"My theory after 28 years in the business is that drug usage is supply-driven," he said. "People suffering from addictive illness usually have a drug preference, but it’s not a strong preference."

Coleman said the agency is alarmed by heroin’s emergence as a drug used by adolescents.

"Two or three years ago, we weren’t seeing it in the adolescent population. Now, 5 to 8 percent of the adolescents we see are seriously involved with heroin."

Michael Johnson, a Columbus police narcotics detective, said heroin is "pretty close to cocaine" in prevalence in central Ohio, but investigating heroin sales is challenging.

"It’s a real close-knit group of drug dealers," he said. "When you work a heroin case and you try to make a buy, they’ll want to see needle marks, which of course we don’t have."

Marotta described the drugs found Tuesday night as "highgrade, Mexican brown heroin."

He said the vast majority of illegal drugs being sold in the United States enter the country across the southwestern border.

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