Four people were arrested in Montauk on Oct. 5 following an early morning raid in which a multi-agency team of investigators found $35,000 in cash, “drug distribution paraphernalia,” a 9-millimeter handgun, cocaine, and enough fentanyl to “kill over 1,000 people,” Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney’s office announced Friday afternoon.
Angel Garces-Diaz, Anuedy Garces-Medrano, 35, Yadaris Baez-Rivera, 26, and Everado Hernandez, 45, are alleged to have been involved in trafficking and distributing cocaine and fentanyl from the Dominican Republic and New York City to the East End.
The search of the defendants’ residences, vehicles, and a storage facility was the culmination of a months-long investigation beginning in March by the East End Drug Task Force, working with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s Strike Force Team, the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, and other agencies that included the East Hampton Town Police Department.
“We executed five search warrants all at the same time,” said East Hampton Town Police Department spokesman Detective Sgt. Ryan Hogan.
The four subjects were arraigned at East Hampton Town Justice Court last Thursday before Justice Steven Tekulsky.
Police were tipped off to the scheme when, in the summer of 2020, the Department of Homeland Security intercepted a bundle of cocaine that was bound for Montauk from the Dominican Republic. The packaging contained a fake name and “misleading” address, the D.A.’s office said.
An attempt to deliver the package to its intended recipient at that time “was unsuccessful and the investigation reached a dead end.”
The East End Drug Task Force resumed the investigation in March and gathered “evidence sufficient to obtain and execute search warrants, and arrest these defendants.”
Investigators said that Mr. Garces-Diaz would have narcotics mailed to him from New York City, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere, “for distribution in the Montauk area, particularly at the local bar scene.”
“During the investigation,” the D.A.’s office said, “a series of undercover buys were allegedly secured from Garces-Diaz and the three additional individuals. . . .”
Detective Hogan distinguished this investigation from a big 2018 drug bust in Montauk in which the defendants were accused of selling drugs out of bars and restaurants in the hamlet. Sixteen people were arrested following that investigation.
This time around, Detective Hogan said, there were “no specific locations where an employee of any one of the locations was dealing the drugs.”
Detective Hogan also noted that fentanyl is a relative newcomer to the illicit-drug scene and that this case was “one of the largest we’ve had with this amount,” even as he took pains to not rank this investigation as any more important than any other the agency has conducted or participated in. The benchmark for “importance,” he noted, was the positive community impact in getting all that fentanyl and cocaine off the streets.
Mr. Garces-Diaz faces 10 felony charges relating to criminal sale and possession of a controlled substance. The other defendants are looking at between one and three charges.
Justice Tekulsky ordered Mr. Garces-Diaz and Mr. Garces-Medrano held without bail. Ms. Baez-Rivera and Mr. Hernandez were released on their own recognizances, “as current law prevents the District Attorney’s Office from seeking any bail,“ Mr. Tierney’s office noted.
Mr. Garces-Diaz and Mr. Garces-Medrano, who have each retained their own attorneys, are due back in court on Oct. 26. Robert Connolly is representing Mr. Garces-Diaz; Edward Burke Jr. is representing Mr. Garces-Medrano, according to the D.A.
Ms. Baez-Rivera and Mr. Hernandez are due in court on Oct. 27 and are being represented by Legal Aid.
“Thanks to our great partnership through our East End Drug Task Force with our East End police agencies, the Suffolk County Police Department and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, we were able to disrupt the drug trade in Montauk by arresting these four individuals,” Mr. Tierney said in last Friday’s statement.
The East End Drug Task Force includes district attorney investigators, members of Suffolk County and New York State Police Departments, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, and the East Hampton, Southampton, Riverhead, and Southold Town Police Departments.
“This was started via information from our squad itself,” said Detective Hogan, adding that “we use the task force to do stuff we couldn’t do on a regular basis.”
Assistant District Attorney William Nash of the D.A.’s narcotics bureau will prosecute the case.
“These arrests shut down a vast drug network operating in Montauk and throughout the Northeast,” D.E.A. special agent Frank Tarentino said in last Friday’s release.
Montauk residents were tipped off that something big was afoot last week when numerous police vehicles from various agencies roared through town at around 7:30 a.m.
Detective offered “kudos” to all the agencies and individuals involved in the investigation and subsequent arrests. “It’s an ongoing investigation,” he said, “but there were obviously arrests made.”
Note: This article has been updated since it originally appeared online.