Reading police seize fentanyl, other drugs; street value near $580,000

Oct. 21—Reading narcotics officers seized more than a half-million dollars in illicit drugs, four rifles and two pistols from a second-floor apartment that two men were using to sell the powerful painkiller fentanyl, which has been linked to hundreds of overdose deaths in Berks County in recent years, Police Chief Richard Tornielli announced Thursday.

The seizure Wednesday morning included nearly 2 pounds of fentanyl in bulk form in addition to 1,989 fentanyl pills and 6,296 packets of the substance packaged for street sale. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is often cut with street drugs by dealers, sometimes with deadly consequences, officials said.

Also seized were cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and Ecstasy.

One of the men, Jesse Garcia, 24, was arrested as he tried to flee through the side door into the fire escape, according to the criminal complaint.

The other man, Maximo Lopez-Suarez, 34, was taken into custody in the living room as he tried to flee out the back of the apartment, officials said.

"This investigation and subsequent arrests and the seizure of a large quantity of illegal drugs and firearms will undoubtedly make that neighborhood and our city safer," Tornielli said in a City Hall news conference. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illegal narcotics, including the extremely dangerous drug fentanyl, will not poison the residents of our city and county. The seven firearms seized will never be used to inflict violence in our community."

Garcia and Lopez-Suarez were committed to Berks County Prison in lieu of $250,000 bail each Wednesday night following arraignment before District Judge Tonya Butler in Reading Central Court. They each face drug-trafficking and conspiracy charges.

The investigations were part of Operation Ceasefire, a Reading Police Department initiative designed to reduce violence through the use of targeted enforcement details and collaboration with the community, Tornielli said.

It's also part of a larger goal of Mayor Eddie Moran's administration to ensure the community has safe streets and neighborhoods, the chief said.

"Individuals who think they can conduct acts of violence, sell poison on our streets and commit other criminal acts in our city will quickly find out that this administration, the Reading Police Department and the residents will not stand for it," Tornielli said.

Fentanyl was present in 55 of the 83 confirmed drug deaths so far this year, according to data provided by Berks County acting Coroner Jonn M. Hollenbach.

Rulings on 47 other suspected deaths are pending laboratory confirmation, he said.

Recent mass ODs

A mixture of fentanyl and other street drugs such as cocaine was linked to a mass overdose incident in December 2019 in Berks County.

On Dec. 9, 2019, Adams issued a community health advisory in the wake of a weekend that saw a dozen overdoses — three of them fatal — in and near Berks County. Five of the overdoses occurred in a single incident in West Reading.

A Sinking Spring man was later charged with causing the death of a man who was found unresponsive in his residence just over the Berks line in Millcreek Township, Lebanon County, on Dec. 7, 2019 — the same night as the West Reading overdoses.

Berks detectives determined the victim bought a quality of cocaine mixed with fentanyl earlier that day after meeting the defendant in Sinking Spring.

Fentanyl is not believed to have been behind recent mass overdose that prompted another health advisory from the district attorney.

A total of 101 people were treated in Reading Hospital and Penn State Health St. Joseph hospital over the weekend of Sept. 11-12.

Adams said those patients suffered extremely low heart rates and high blood pressure, a presentation not typically associated with an opioid overdose.

There was speculation that the patients, some of whom were hospitalized for days, ingested a powerful horse tranquilizer, but that was ruled out in lab tests.

With the help of Reading Hospital, which ran a second series of lab tests, authorities recently identified the substance that caused the symptoms, Adams said in a phone interview following the city police chief's press conference. Adams declined Thursday to identify the substance, saying he didn't want to compromise an investigation.

He described it as more of a poison than a street drug, and said he plans to publicly identify the substance soon.

More than fentanyl

Besides fentanyl, significant amounts of illegal substances were seized in Wednesday's raid on the North Eighth Street apartment.

They included about a pound of methamphetamine with an estimated street value of $50,000; three-quarters of a pound of bulk cocaine with a street value of about $36,000; 7 pounds of marijuana with a street value of about $32,000; and 1.7 pounds of MDMA, better known as Ecstasy, worth about $8,000.

Also seized were 4,187 plastic vials of cocaine with a street value of about $60,000.

The combined street value of all the seized drugs comes to $580,000, Tornielli said.

Adams said the presence of thousands of fentanyl pills is especially troubling because they alone can cause overdoses if ingested.

"The drugs that were confiscated are indicative of the dangerous substances that were being sold out of this property, and these are the drugs that are causing deaths in our community," he said.

Tornielli used the press conference as an opportunity to commend members of his department for their often-unheralded work.

"Operations such as this investigation are inherently dangerous as is all the work our women and men who wear the uniform do on a daily basis," he said, "yet they face that danger head-on to make their community a better place."