OVIEDO, Fla.,None — UPDATE (09/29/10): The state attorney dropped all charges against Mauricio Yepes and found him innocent.
The DEA just busted a major heroin operation in Central Florida. It's a bust unlike any agents have seen in decades and it was delivering drugs only to Central Florida.
DEA agents said most of these investigations lead them to main players in other cities, but not this one. It was operating, top to bottom, out of homes in Central Florida, including at least one in Oviedo, with direct links to South America.
Heroin packaged for the streets was seized Thursday by 12 DEA teams spread out across Central Florida. It was accompanied by automatic rifles and handguns and bags of loose cash. The group distributing it all was bringing in so much money, as much as $400,000 a month, it needed a machine just to count it all.
"You need no other evidence than the table in front of you to see what we battle every day," Osceola County Sheriff Bob Hansell said, referring to the seized weapons, drugs and cash.
The group had a direct connection to Columbia, investigators said, shipping in three to four kilos of heroin every month. Accused leader Mauricio Yepes, who was in the country illegally, located the operation in the Orlando area and distributed along the I-4 corridor.
Investigators said heroin in Central Florida was largely stamped out after numerous overdose deaths in the 80s and 90s and smuggling routes were cut off after September 11, but customers are still here.
"There still remains a substantial addict population in Central Florida and they're being fed by these individuals we arrested today," said Steve Collins, DEA.
The 14 group members arrested thought so much of themselves, they put their faces on Scarface posters, actor Al Pacino's fictional cocaine crime lord. The group had been operating successfully for two and half years, before Thursday. The investigation started in Tampa and led to Orlando.
The DEA said it's already getting information on other groups that are operating in the area that might want to fill the void created by the arrests.
WFTV
