Florida Fentanyl Dealers Busted With Enough Dope to Wipe Out a Town

These Florida Fentanyl dealers may have been near a playground, but law enforcement wasn't playing around. The police just bagged themselves a couple of wannabe kingpins, and it’s a good thing they did too. According to NBC2, the Collier County Sheriff's Office say some dude named Maikel Raul Felipe Bernal, 42, and his partner-in-crime, Yusbelkin Clemente-Vega, 39, were allegedly sitting on enough fentanyl to take out an entire small town of 17,000 people! All of this went down a stone's throw from a park where kids play. Now, who in their right mind sets up a drug den across from a playground? It’s like these idiots were just begging to get caught.

So the detectives roll up with a search warrant, and BAM! They hit the jackpot of Florida fentanyl drug dens. We're talking about 318 little blue pills, made to look like oxycodone but packing a deadly punch. On top of that, they found some meth and a nice chunk of change of around $13,380 stashed in the crib and another $6,000 Bernal was holding when they slapped on the cuffs. The way the cash was stacked up? Yeah, that screamed drug dealers all day.

Sheriff Rambosk, the top dog of the CCSO, didn’t hold back his words on the Florida fentanyl arrests. He’s basically saying, “Look, if you think you’re going to sell this poison around here, especially where kids play, you’re in for a world of hurt.” And he means business.

Now Bernal and Clemente-Vega are chilling in the county jail, facing some serious charges. They’re looking at trafficking fentanyl over 28 grams, and Bernal’s got an extra possession of meth charge too. Now the community can breathe a little easier knowing that the lethal stash and dope dealing trash is off the streets.

In a new study by the Florida International University, 94% of the fish off the Florida coast tested positive for drugs. In the study, researchers sampled 113 Florida redfish, looking for 94 commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals. And they found them. On average, researchers detected 2.1 pharmaceuticals per redfish and only seven of those redfish tested clean. Of the areas tested, Tampa Bay had one of the highest concentrations. Looking to our Southwest Florida waters, Charlotte Harbor had medium concentrations. The Fort Myers area was not tested. So why are the fish on drugs? It's the wastewater.

According to FIU, "Pharmaceutical contaminants originate most often from human wastewater and are not sufficiently removed by conventional water treatment. They remain active at low doses and can be released constantly." The drugs affect the lives of the fish, and "On average, 25.7 percent of the fish exceeded a level of pharmaceuticals considered safe, which equates to one-third of the therapeutic levels in humans." So it's not just harmful to the fish, the amount of drugs in the fish really questions the safety of eating them.

The most common drug found in the redfish was Flecainide, which can treat and prevent serious irregular heartbeats. Heart medicine. That makes sense since a LOT of people here in Florida take that drug. The most common side effect of that drug is constipation. Second most? Tramadol. That's right, the opioid analgesic pain killer. More than half of the redfish (52%) had Tramadol in them. "Ayy bro lemme get two pounds of that OxyFish...." is not just a joke. And Tramadol isn't just a painkiller. It may decrease fertility in men and women.

The study goes on to say “The results of this study indicate that there are additional opportunities for improvement by retrofitting existing wastewater treatment plants with innovative technologies, like ozone treatment, to remove pharmaceuticals and requiring such technology on new wastewater facilities.” So the trend can be reversed. But it's going to take more research, and money. Last year, the school conducted a study on bonefish in Biscayne Bay and the Florida Keys with similar results.

Here's the .pdf of the full study