The Feds Are Cracking Down on the Potentially Deadly Mexican Heroin Flowing into Florida

Last September 11, detectives working with a federal task force based in Miami rummaged through the bathroom of an apartment on Sunrise Village Lane in Norcross, Georgia, some 680 miles from their home base. Under a vanity cabinet, they found several kilos of heroin belonging to an alleged drug trafficker from Mexico named Joel Diaz-Fernandez, according to a factual proffer statement recently filed by prosecutors in Miami federal court.

Diaz-Fernandez was not in the apartment during the search, but investigators did arrest two of his alleged employees who were inside, Mexican nationals Crecencio Silverio and Margarita Barragan-Velez, court documents show. The raid was part of an 11-month investigation into a 20-person network that apparently funneled multi-kilogram quantities of heroin from Mexico to several cities across Florida, including Miami in the southeast, Fort Meyers in the southwest, and Orlando in the central part of the state. The case provides a rare glimpse into the Mexican heroin trade that's taken hold in Florida, where opioid-related deaths have reached record levels in the aftermath of high-profile crackdowns on so-called "pill mills" that shill prescription drugs.

"We are in an epidemic as it relates to heroin and other opioids," says James Hall, a Broward County–based epidemiologist. "Traditionally, we had low numbers of opioid-related deaths. We are now catching up with the rest of the country."

Florida's medical examiners documented 447 heroin-related deaths in 2014, an increase of 111 percent compared to the previous year, according to an annual drug report released this past September by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). That's the most deaths since 250 people died from heroin-related overdoses in 2002.

Meanwhile, deaths caused by fentanyl, a synthetic opiate that is more potent than morphine and sometimes used to cut heroin, increased 114 percent in 2014 to 470, the same report says.

Hall, who works for Nova Southeastern University's Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities, says the death toll numbers continued to rise in 2015 for Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, which documented 186 people dying from heroin-related causes from January through November. In 2014, both counties had a combined 111 heroin-related deaths. (Hall says 2015 figures for Broward County are not yet available.)

The expert does note, however, that admissions at primary treatment centers for heroin and fentanyl increased by 33 percent in Miami-Dade and 74 percent in Broward last year when compared to 2014.

Media reports have attributed the rise of heroin use in Florida in part to law enforcement crackdowns on the state's illegal pain pill clinic industry, as well as a push by Mexican drug organizations to reintroduce smack as a cheaper, more accessible alternative to oxycodone and other prescription drugs. And it's true that deaths caused by oxycodone in 2014 decreased by 12 percent when compared with 2013 and decreased 69 percent over the past five years, according to the FDLE report.

But Hall argues Florida's opioid problems would be worse if pill mills were still in operation. "We would be seeing a greater heroin epidemic," he says. "The prescription opioid clinics are breeding grounds for new heroin users."

Mexican traffickers are now marketing a white powder that is purer and more powerful than the traditional "black tar" heroin the US's southern neighbor is known for, according to a 2015 national drug report prepared by the DEA. The same report also claims that Mexican criminal groups produce backyard fentanyl and smuggle the drug across the southwestern border of the United States.

John Schmidt, founder of Marvin's Corner, a Miami-based nonprofit addiction services company, says Mexican heroin—whether laced with fentanyl or not—sells for $100 a gram on the street. "One tenth of a gram is enough to get someone plenty high," Schmidt tells me. "I believe it is Mexican junk. They're now using good chemists who have taken out the old brownish stuff. The moment a junkie sees white dope, they run to it like a scotch drinker runs to Johnnie Walker."

Hall thinks heroin laced with fentanyl is even more lethal. "It's 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin or morphine," he argues. "Heroin users can easily be fooled into buying fentanyl-laced heroin that can be far more deadly."

While a majority of Mexican white heroin is being seized in the Midwest and Southwest, it is now being found in large quantities in Florida alongside South American made white heroin, the DEA report states.

"The suspected production of white powder heroin in Mexico is important because it indicates that Mexican traffickers are positioning themselves to take even greater control of the US heroin market," the DEA report reads. "It also indicates that Mexican traffickers may rely less on relationships with South American heroin sources-of-supply, primarily in Colombia, in the future."

The feds say Diaz-Fernandez is a Mexican drug trafficker who was looking to capture his share of the market. This past March, a task force aimed at reducing violent drug-related crimes in south Florida began surveillance on Sean Watkins, a 43-year-old convicted felon from Miami who was selling multiple ounces of smack to other dealers in his hometown, as well as in Fort Meyers, Orlando, and Huntsville, Alabama, according to the factual proffer.

The court document states that Watkins agreed to purchase multiple kilograms of heroin from Diaz-Fernandez (and his Mexican associates) for $65,000 each. On August 26, investigators tailed Watkins as he made the nine-hour trek from Miami to Norcross, where he twice visited the apartment at Sunrise Village Lane. The feds also claim Watkins had other Mexican heroin suppliers in his rolodex.

"One such supplier, Francisco Quezada, regularly received wire transfers from Watkins and Watkins's associates as payment for past narcotics sales," the factual proffer states. "Quezada communicated with Watkins from inside a Mexican prison."

The investigation culminated on January 28, when prosecutors indicted Watkins, Diaz-Fernandez, Quezada, Silverio, and Barragan-Velez on heroin trafficking and conspiracy charges. At a press conference, Wifredo Ferrer, US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, hailed the bust, along with the announcement of four other separate, unrelated indictments, as a major victory in the drug war.

"Today, we have cast a wide net in our ongoing efforts to prosecute the violent offenders, narcotics traffickers, and convicted felons who continue to prey on our local communities," Ferrer said in a prepared statement. "Our innovative investigative techniques continue to support the identification and apprehension of those who violate the law."

But Hall and Schmidt believe heroin and fentanyl is still flowing into Florida. "I don't think it will make much of a dent," Schmidt says. "It will be a couple of days of addicts going through a little sickness until they find a new source."

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