HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday, in collaboration with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, announced the takedown of an upper-level, fentanyl-trafficking operation based in Northeast Philadelphia.
This week, three individuals were charged and more than five kilograms of fentanyl — approximately $2 million worth — was seized from homes on Wellington Street and Montague Street.
The arrests and seizures were the culmination of a collaborative investigation by the Office of Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics Investigation, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Philadelphia Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, Liberty Mid-Atlantic High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), Pennsylvania State Police, and the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office.
Johan Manuel Almonte-Ortiz, 26; Argedys Noel De La Cruz Jerez, 33; and Domingo Cedeno-Pimentel, 37, are charged with felony drug trafficking, conspiracy, and related offenses.
The investigation is ongoing.
“Today marks another milestone in efforts to rid the Commonwealth of predatory fentanyl traffickers who value dollars over human lives,” Attorney General Sunday said. “With our partners, we seized more than 2½ million doses of fentanyl — each dose with the potential and potency to end a life. This statewide trafficking pipeline that carried fentanyl in and around Philadelphia and to the western part of the Commonwealth is now closed.”
Law enforcement served search warrants at homes on Wellington Street and Montague Street this week, interrupting a fentanyl packaging operation at the Wellington Street home.
There, nearly 100,000 packets of fentanyl — ready for street sales — were seized, along with nearly three kilograms of bulk fentanyl.
Investigators also seized more than 100 different stamps, used to brand the fentanyl for street sales.
Throughout the course of the investigation, nearly seven kilograms of fentanyl were seized.
The charges were filed by the Office of Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Criminal charges, and any discussion thereof, are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
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