Three nabbed in multimillion-dollar heroin bust in Bucks, police say

Three men face felony drug charges after police in Bensalem say they caught them packaging heroin and fentanyl for sale inside an apartment in the township, investigators said Tuesday.

Jose Nieves Velez, 31; Emanuel Rodrigues-Santiago, 31; and Hamlet Bentacourt Pimentel, 38, were arrested Saturday and charged with drug offenses, court records show. All three remained in custody at the county jail in lieu of $1 million bail each.

The Department of Immigration and Custom Enforcement has placed detainers on Nieves Velez, who entered the country illegally, and Rodrigeus-Santiago, a felon who was previously deported, police said.

Officers investigating a suspected drug-trafficking ring served a warrant Saturday on a rented apartment on Neshaminy Valley Drive, according to investigators. Inside, police said, they found the three suspects as they were “manufacturing, cutting and packaging” drugs for sale.

Investigators seized hundreds of bags of already-packaged heroin and fentanyl, as well as three kilograms (about six pounds) of unprocessed opioids. The three were also in possession of Xylazine, a livestock sedative sometimes used to cut heroin.

Police estimated the seized drugs were worth $4.5 million.

The drug bust came three months after another operation was uncovered in Warminster. In that case, police and federal agents raided a house on Cheryl Drive and discovered a sophisticated packaging operation in its basement that investigators estimated produced $8 million worth of opioids weekly.

Nine suspects were arrested in the Warminster house and face preliminary hearings later this month.