PROVIDENCE – Two men are in federal custody following a Rhode Island DEA Drug Task Force investigation that resulted in the seizure of more than 3.4 kilograms of fentanyl pills.
Roberto Anibal Nieves Zayas, of Puerto Rico, and Mervin Roberto Cabral Roche, of the Dominican Republic, appeared in U.S. District Court in Providence on May 28 and were ordered detained in federal custody on a federal criminal complaint charging them with conspiracy to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl and possession with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing fentanyl, acting U.S. Attorney Richard B. Myrus said on Tuesday.
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According to court documents, on April 29 an individual assisting investigators arranged for the delivery of 1,000 fentanyl pills for $5,000. The pills were delivered in the parking lot of a Pawtucket restaurant.
On May 24, the same individual arranged to purchase 25,000 fentanyl pills for $125,000. Two days later, as the delivery of the pills was allegedly in progress inside a passenger van in the parking lot of a Dorchester, Mass. restaurant, Rhode Island DEA task force agents moved in and seized from two men inside the van a large plastic garbage bag containing 3.4 kilograms of fentanyl pills.
Investigators say the two men inside the van in Dorchester, Nieves Zayas, 35, and Cabral Roche, 46, are the same men that allegedly delivered the 1,000 fentanyl pills a month earlier in Pawtucket.
The case is being prosecuted by assistant U.S. Attorney Stacey P. Veroni.
Accidental drug overdose deaths in Rhode Island jumped by 25% in 2020 over the prior year, to their highest level since records have been kept, according to Rhode Island health officials. Fentanyl was involved in about three out of four of those overdoses in 2020.
