'COVID-19' Heroin Seized In $5M NYC Drug Bust

BRONX, NY — Drug dealers in the Bronx using "COVID-19" and "Drop Dead" as brand names for heroin and fentanyl were busted with $5-million worth of the drugs this week, according to officials.

Agents seized nearly 40 pounds of the alleged heroin and fentanyl on Sunday from two Morris Heights apartments and a car used by three major drug traffickers, who were all arrested after the search, the city's Special Narcotics Prosecutor announced Friday.

The haul included more than 225,000 packaged glassine envelopes of the heroin-fentanyl mixture, packaging equipment, grinders, scales, a kilo press machine and dozens of stamping, which had the morbid brand names below a picture of a skull, according to officials.

“This seizure of 40 pounds of heroin and fentanyl has saved lives," Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said. "The fact that the packagers used 'COVID-19' as a brand name illustrates the callousness of these alleged traffickers, as opioid overdose deaths surged during the pandemic."

The indictment charged all three traffickers — Hector Morillo, 46; Jaime Artiles, 47; and Freddy Hernandez-Reyes, 44 — with operating as a major trafficker and criminal possession of a controlled substance. All three were arraigned on Friday.

Investigators first caught onto the operation when agents working on another narcotics investigation on Montgomery Avenue saw Reyes walk from an apartment building to Artiles in a Honda Pilot with a weighted-down black bag, and again with a light blue colored bag, according to officials.

The investigators followed the Honda Pilot and stopped it on the George Washington Bridge, taking note fo the bag int eh back seat of the car, they said.

Later that morning, they saw Morillo circe the Montgomery Avenue block before heading into the same apartment building. After he and Reyes stopped by two apartments in the building, agents who noticed Reyes carrying stamps and envelopes stopped them, officials said.

They found 1.5 kilograms of heroin and fentanyl in one of Reyes' bags, officials said.

Agents got a search warrant for both of the apartments and the Honda Pilot later that day, leading to the seizure of the nearly 40 pounds of drugs, which officials estimated had a street value of $5 million, officials said.

The results of DEA Laboratory analysis on some of the substances seized in this case are pending, officials said.