A man from the D.R. is accused of selling fentanyl and heroin in New York which was "potent enough to kill half a million people" and led to the death of a young Hudson Valley man.

On Monday, officials announced the extradition of Anyerdon ("Angelo") Delacruz-Rosario, an alleged major narcotics trafficker who allegedly set up and supplied a series of heroin and fentanyl packaging operations in the Bronx that distributed hundreds of thousands of user-ready packets between December 2014 and March 2016 across New York, including the Hudson Valley.

Delacruz-Rosario was taken into custody on July 10, 2019, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and transported to New York on Friday.

An indictment filed by the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor charges Delacruz-Rosario with two counts of operating as a major trafficker under New York State’s kingpin statute, which carries a possible life sentence.

He is also charged with conspiracy and six counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance.

A long-term wiretap investigation revealed that Delacruz-Rosario allegedly directed at least two heroin packaging operations in New York from his base in the Dominican Republic, which led to the death of a Hudson Valley resident, officials say.

Delacruz-Rosario is accused of working with New York City-based traffickers to purchase kilogram quantities of heroin and fentanyl that his organization would process and distribute in glassine envelopes in New York, including the Hudson Valley.

“Fentanyl is behind 40% of all fatal drug overdoses and is currently the nation’s biggest public health threat,” DEA Special Agent in Charge Ray Donovan said. “This investigation is significant because it pinpoints fentanyl’s ground zero in New York and resulted in the extradition of the drug kingpin responsible. In May 2015, DEA and our law enforcement partners confronted a new enemy – in the form of a fentanyl kilo, potent enough to kill half a million people. It was one of the first times we had seen fentanyl in a brick form, mimicking a kilo of heroin."

The investigation, arrests and seizures were the results of a collaborative effort by the DEA’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force (NY OCDESF), Group Z-41, the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Heroin Interdiction Team (HIT) and Investigators Unit, the New York State Police, the New York City Police Department, HSI New York and the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office.

Eleven defendants were previously arrested as a result of a long-term wiretap investigation. All have since pled guilty. The investigation began in October of 2014, after a young man’s death from a fatal heroin overdose in Sullivan County.

“Heroin traffickers like Anyerson Delacruz-Rosario, who are based outside of the U.S., think that they are out of the reach of law enforcement when they set up their narcotics distribution networks in upstate New York. They don’t realize that we will use all of the resources at our disposal to get to the source of the heroin that is poisoning our community," Sullivan County Sheriff Michael Schiff said.

The investigation led to the identification of two wholesale drug organizations in New York City directed by Delacruz-Rosario, police say.

“This drug kingpin is finally behind bars after years of hard work and determination by our law enforcement partners," New York State Police Superintendent Keith M. Corlett said. "Heroin packaged under the direction of the defendant resulted in the death of a young man in Sullivan County. Law enforcement worked tirelessly to take down the mills where it was packaged and find a leader of the operation, ultimately leading them to the defendant. This defendant had zero regard for the communities where his operations sold these dangerous drugs. Every day we see the impact these harmful substances have on families, neighborhoods, and communities. We pledge to continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners, to make sure individuals who are at the root of this illegal activity are held accountable, and the dangerous narcotics and crimes stay away from our streets.”

More From WZAD-WCZX The Wolf