Authorities in western Massachusetts today announced the seizure of a very substantial amount of illegal drugs and firearms.
An investigation into drug trafficking from a house on Casino Avenue in Chicopee led to the arrests of two suspects, the discovery of a half-dozen high-powered firearms, and the seizure of 3 kilograms each of cocaine and suspected fentanyl with a total estimated street value of $1.2 million.
Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni released details of the investigation at a news conference Tuesday where the confiscated drugs and weapons were displayed.
“The evidence as laid out here represents the challenges that our communities are facing – the spread of fentanyl, an extraordinarily lethal substance that is accelerating the addiction epidemic, and firearms in the wrong peoples’ hands, which fuels the rise in street violence we’re seeing across this county, the Commonwealth, and this country,” Gulluni said.
Last year, fentanyl was present in 93 percent of fatal overdoses in Massachusetts where a toxicology report was available, according to the Department of Public Health.
“To put the lethality of fentanyl in more perspective, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) estimates that 1 kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people,” Gulluni said.
Charged with two counts each of drug trafficking are 49-year-old Jose Martinez and 57-year-old Leonilde Rivera, both of Chicopee. They were arrested last Saturday in a vehicle that police stopped on the Massachusetts Turnpike in West Springfield. The drugs were allegedly found in the vehicle.
When police searched the house at 126 Casino Ave. in Chicopee they found three AR-15-style rifles and three handguns. One was a “ghost gun” and another had a switch that converts it to a fully automatic weapon, said Gulluni.
“Some of these things are being addressed in the gun bill that is before (the Massachusetts) legislature now and that is why I expressed my support for that because it addresses ghost guns head-on and it actually addresses that auto-switch issue that we are seeing much more commonly in Springfield and other parts of the state,” Gulluni said.
Despite being short-staffed, Chicopee Police Chief Patrick Major recently assigned several officers to investigative units in the DA’s office and the decision almost immediately paid off with these recent arrests and seizures.
“We’ve had personnel assigned to the task force in the past, but the last person retired about a year ago,” Major explained. “Because of a shortage of personnel at the time we had to hold off until I recently met with the DA and the decision was made to allow our detectives in the narcotics unit to join the task force again.”
Gulluni said partnerships with local police departments in Hampden County are a great assistance to his office’s pursuit of high-level drug dealers.
“To have that county-wide perspective with the help of the State Police and our different agencies is really critical to making bigger cases, going up-stream on drug trafficking operations, and really having that broader impact,” Gulluni said.
At their arraignments Monday in Springfield District Court, Martinez was ordered held on $75,000 cash bail on the drug trafficking charges. His bail in another case was revoked.
Rivera is being held on $50,000 cash bail.
Both are due back in court on November 21, 2023.
