Brooklyn Drug Ring Sold 'Supersized' Packages Of Fentanyl, Prosecutor Says

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A Brooklyn drug delivery service that sold "supersized" amounts of the dangerous opioid fentanyl, along with heroin and crack cocaine, was busted by police after undercover officers bought more than $45,o00 of drugs, prosecutors said.

The ring operated out of a home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and sold the drugs in Bensonhurst, Borough Park and Sunset Park, prosecutors said.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that NYC's Special Narcotics Prosecutor said was responsible for more than half of the drug overdose deaths in the city last year. It's produced by cartels in Mexico and smuggled across the border, authorities said.

This delivery service would sell fentanyl in glassine envelopes that could hold five times as much as a typical sale, according to the prosecutor's office.

Rasheem Meredith, the leader of the group, was arrested in Sunset Park on Wednesday after selling 30 packages of heroine to an undercover cop, the office said.

Joseph Dale sold more than 1,800 "supersized" envelopes of fentanyl worth more than $34,000 to undercover cops over a dozen meetings, according to an investigation that involved the NYPD's Narcotics Borough Brooklyn South, the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

The large buys of fentanyl were called "China White," prosecutors said.

"Bags were filled with pure fentanyl; even a minuscule amount of fentanyl can send a user into overdose so rapidly that lifesaving antidotes are ineffective," Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan said in a press release.

Edwin Pedroza and William Alvarado were also arrested in the sting, authorities said.

A search of an apartment belonging to Pedroza and Dale found what is believed to be fentanyl, cocaine, crack-cocaine and marijuana, along with assorted pills and drug paraphernalia, seven cellphones and about $2,500 in cash.

All four men have been charged with various counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance.

Image via Special Narcotics Prosecutor's office