United States Drug Enforcement Administration

NEWARK, N.J. - Carl J. Kotowski, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New Jersey Division and William E. Fitzpatrick, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, announced a Bergen County, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 162 months in prison for purchasing more than three kilograms of heroin from a source in Bronx, New York, and re-selling it to drug dealers in Paterson, New Jersey.
 
Edwin Lopez, aka “E,” aka “Pan,” 31, of Elmwood Park, New Jersey, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton in Newark federal court to an information charging him with one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than one kilogram of heroin.

From June 2015 to May 2016, Lopez and others allegedly participated in a drug trafficking organization that amassed wholesale quantities of heroin at multiple locations around Bronx, NY, and used couriers to deliver large quantities of heroin to mid-level drug dealers in Paterson.  The heroin was either sold in the Paterson area or redistributed to street-level drug dealers in suburban areas, including Morris County, New Jersey, and Rockland County, New York.

Lopez admitted he participated in this conspiracy from June 2015 until his arrest on April 19, 2016.  He admitted that at the time of his arrest he was giving a $13,500 payment to a drug courier in exchange for 150 bricks of (one brick contains 100 individual hits of heroin).

In addition to the prison term, Judge Wigenton sentenced Lopez to five years of supervised release.

Acting U.S. Attorney Fitzpatrick credited special agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New Jersey Division, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Carl J. Kotowski, with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing.