United States Drug Enforcement Administration

CONCORD, N.H. - - Michael J. Ferguson Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration for New England and United States Attorney, Emily Gray Rice announced that United States District Court Judge Landya McCafferty sentenced Tiffany Ramos to serve 60 months in federal prison. Ramos, who resided in Manchester prior to arrest, previously pleaded guilty to distributing controlled substances and possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute.

According to documents that were filed in United States District Court and statements in court proceedings, Ramos, 27, sold heroin and to a cooperating witness on three occasions in May and June of 2015. She was arrested on June 12, 2015, and found to be in possession of over 128 grams of fentanyl. Contrary to some media reports, the distribution charge to which Ramos pleaded guilty did not involve an overdose death.  According to statistics maintained by the state of New Hampshire, over half of the drug overdose deaths in New Hampshire in 2015 were related to fentanyl. Because a single gram of heroin or fentanyl can be used to create multiple individual dosage units that can be sold “on the street,” the quantity of fentanyl involved in this case could have generated hundreds of individual doses of fentanyl, each of which had the potential to cause a fatal overdose.

The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, with assistance from other law enforcement agencies, including the New Hampshire State Police and the Manchester Police Department.