COLUMBUS – A six-month undercover narcotics operation culminated this week in the arrests of three people and the seizure of nearly $1 million worth of fentanyl.
The investigation, which began in May, and was carried out by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit and the Hilliard Division of Police led to the arrests on Thursday of two men and a woman and the confiscation of a quantity of fentanyl worth an estimated $940,000, according to a press release from Sheriff Dallas Baldwin Hilliard and Deputy Chief of Police Michael Woods.
Alvaro Hernandez, 28, and Magally Ruelas-Gonzales, 37, were arrested when they tried to sell four kilos of the synthetic opioid, worth approximately $800,000, to an undercover detective, Baldwin and Woods said.
Arturo Benavides, 32, was arrested in a vehicle where investigators found the drugs with the aid of a drug-sniffing dog.
An additional 700 grams of suspected fentanyl, worth about $140,000, were located at one of the suspect’s homes on Chippewa Falls Street in Dublin, Baldwin and Woods said
The three are charged with aggravated trafficking in drugs, a first-degree felony, authorities said.
The investigation revealed the fentanyl entered the United States at the country’s southwest border and were intended for distribution in Columbus, authorities said.