BROOKSVILLE — One pile of wax paper envelops that contained individually wrapped doses of heroin bore the name of El Chapo, the infamous Mexican drug lord.
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Another pile had envelopes with the name of Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Yet another pile, though, had the name and likeness of President Donald Trump — a joke Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi didn’t think was funny.
"All I want to say to this drug dealer is, ‘Big mistake by putting the president’s picture on this,’ " Bondi said while holding up one of the little white squares. "Big mistake. Because he is going to be our most fierce advocate in taking this junk off of our streets. Can you believe this? Big mistake."
The envelopes laid out on a table inside the Hernando County Emergency Operations Center on Friday numbered about 5,550. Authorities could not explain the purpose for the different images on them. Most of them were seized Jan. 27 in what Hernando sheriff’s officials are calling the county’s largest heroin bust ever.
Kelvin Scott Johnson, 46, of Spring Hill, the man deputies believe was responsible for bringing the drugs into the county, was arrested that day on charges of heroin trafficking, cocaine possession and driving with a suspended license. He was being held Friday in lieu of $75,000 bail at the Hernando County Detention Center.
Investigators were first alerted to Johnson’s alleged drug activity in May 2016, said Sheriff Al Nienhuis, when the U.S. Postal Service alerted the department that its agents had intercepted a package containing 550 doses of heroin headed for Hernando County. The package, Nienhuis said, originated from somewhere in the northeastern part of the United States, though he wouldn’t say where.
Once detectives locked onto Johnson, they discovered he was in the midst of another trip north. When he returned last week, Hernando deputies conducted a traffic stop and found cocaine in the car. Elsewhere, they were able to find a package of his that contained about 5,000 doses of heroin, which Neinhuis said had a street value of $50,000 to $100,000.
Nienhuis said getting the drugs off the street meant there would be fewer addicts in Hernando County. If only 10 percent of the doses went to first-time users, he said, that could be 500 people newly addicted to heroin.
This is a developing story. Contact Josh Solomon at (813) 909-4613 or jsolomon@tampabay.com. Follow @josh_solomon15.
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