Foreign national gets prison in conspiracy that flooded NJ with fentanyl

🚨 The Dominican man didn't act alone

🚨 The foreign national's prison sentence was announced this week

🚨 The traffic stop happened in 2022

Authorities sentenced a Dominican man this week for his role in transporting fentanyl into North Jersey.

Hector Luiz De La Cruz Nunez, 32, was sentenced to five years in prison with three years of supervised release.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl, and possession with intent to distribute fentanyl.

Nunez didn’t act alone. Emmanuel F. Almonte Mejia, 40, and Loanny F. Duran Hiciano, 37, were associates of the Philadelphia area “drug mill,” according to the U.S. Attorney's Office District of New Jersey. The two haven't been sentenced yet.

Fentanyl

Prior to Nunez’s run-in with authorities, the trio’s Pennsylvania drug mill had been assembling “large quantities of bulk fentanyl” as early as February 2022, federal prosecutors said.

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Then in March, Nunez was stopped while in transit with the drug supply on hand. The traffic stop happened in Union County, according to NJ.com’s reporting.

Inside the vehicle were roughly 13 pounds of fentanyl found in 400 bricks, federal prosecutors said. The drugs were in a hidden compartment.

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