LYNN — A 31-year-old Salem man was arrested on Monday after a months-long joint local and federal investigation found he was allegedly running a drug trafficking operation by having large amounts of cocaine shipped from Puerto Rico to post offices and various addresses in and around Lynn, police said.
Luis Dejesus-Garcia was charged with trafficking 200-plus grams of cocaine after picking up a package containing a kilo of cocaine at a Salem post office on Monday afternoon, according to Lynn Police Lt. Michael Kmiec.
A search warrant was later executed at his Salem address at 1000 Loring Ave., where police seized $26,400 in cash, Kmiec said.
Dejesus-Garcia was arraigned in Lynn District Court on Tuesday and held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for April 1, according to court documents.
His attorney, Lance Sobelman, said Dejesus-Garcia was looking forward to fighting the case and proving his innocence.
“He is a person with no prior criminal background and these charges are an aberration,” Sobelman said.
The arrest came after an extensive investigation by the Lynn Police Drug Task Force, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service that began in January. Lynn and Salem Police were waiting on Monday for Dejesus-Garcia to pick up the package and subsequently arrested him.
The investigation kicked off after postal inspectors and authorities from the DEA learned Dejesus-Garcia was allegedly running a drug trafficking organization where kilograms of cocaine were being shipped via U.S. mail from Puerto Rico to various addresses in and around Lynn, according to court documents.
In some instances, the packages deemed suspicious were not delivered and opened by authorities while still in federal custody. In other cases, packages were delivered to the intended addresses and surveillance was conducted on the delivery where DeJesus-Garcia was seen picking them up.
In some cases, packages were delivered to 63 Washington St. in Lynn, an apartment Dejesus-Garcia has control of and where his license address comes back to. Throughout the investigation, packages from Puerto Rico were seized by a special agent from the U.S. Postal Inspection Unit, according to court documents.
A total of nearly 5 kilos of cocaine were seized during the course of the investigation, with a street value of approximately $500,000, Kmiec said.
