Coming off a spur of drug-related arrests, local police are concerned that heroin might be being injected into the region at an alarming rate, according to an article by The Daily Mail.
The Greene County Sheriff's Office announced the arrest of Erkan Deniz, Metin D. Deniz and Willie D. Hearn on Tuesday after receiving information that they were traveling on Route 32A with a “quantity” of heroin concealed in the vehicle, according to the article.
Upon searching the car, officers found approximately 30 individual bags of heroin in several areas of the passenger compartment.
These arrests came on the heels of an arrest of Palenville couple Jessica Carlson and Benjamin Bellina by the Ulster Regional Gang Enforcement Narcotics Team, which Greene County Sheriff's Senior Investigator Adam Brainard said is indicative of a trend that has unfolded over the last two years.
“It is actually pretty wide spread,” Brainard told The Daily Mail. “We are coming to see, more and more frequently, instances of heroin possession.”
The heroin problem is not central to Greene County, Brainard said.
“There is no border for this kind of stuff,” Brainard said. “There is the back and forth between Ulster and Greene, and Greene and Albany, and Greene and Columbia, so we are in contact with all of our surrounding agencies. We do the best we can in terms of sharing information and trying to come up with some sort of a plan to effectively look at the situation.”
On July 4, New Paltz police arrested Laramie Yablon, also known as “Sky,” for selling heroin on Main Street. And last week, 27-year-old Oneonta man Aaron Fleischer, currently in the Otsego County jail on an unrelated charge, was arrested and charged with selling heroin in the city of Oneonta back in January.
