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Release Guatemalan Admits Delivering Two Kilograms of Heroin to RI FEB 9-- Miguel David Garcia-Morales, of Guatemala, has admitted transporting two kilograms of heroin to Rhode Island in October. DEA agents arrested Garcia-Morales outside a restaurant near I-95 in Warwick after finding two kilograms of heroin in a secret compartment of a van. The Office of the United States Attorney announced the guilty plea, which Garcia- Morales entered on February 6 before Chief U.S. District Court Judge Ernest C. Torres in U.S. District Court, Providence. Pending sentencing, Garcia-Morales, 33, is detained at the Wyatt Federal Detention Center, Central Falls. At the plea hearing on February 6, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard W. Rose said that, had the case gone to trial, the government would have proven that the Drug Enforcement Administration developed information in October that a quantity of heroin was being transported from New York to Rhode Island in a Safari van. On October 14, agents observed a van matching the description they were given arrive in a parking lot off Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick and saw two occupants enter a restaurant. After two drug-trained dogs detected the presence of drugs in the van, agents
went into the restaurant and obtained permission from the driver of the van to
search it. Inside a secret compartment beneath one of the rear passenger seats,
agents found a brown envelope containing two kilograms of heroin. Agents arrested
the driver, identified as Garcia-Morales, who conceded that he was transporting
the heroin but said the passenger of the van had no knowledge of the drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration investigated the case. |
