North Dakota Authorities Uncover “Heroin Hotline”
Federal authorities say they’ve uncovered a heroin hotline that’s been flooding the Fargo-Moorhead metro area with the deadly drug.
It’s a single cell phone number used to funnel addicts straight to a network of dealers.
The feds say this case is a rarity in that the dealers allowed their greed to blind them to the need for secrecy.
The blatancy of the plans allowed prosecutors to indict four dealers so far.
Investigators found out about the heroin hotline more than year ago, thanks to information gained from a Cass County Jail inmate, who had the number on a cell phone he was carrying when he was booked.
“You’d like to have things happen in a split second, to try to stop this stuff. But you can’t always control with these cases how fast they move,” said Federal Prosecutor Brett Shasky.
A search warrant says the inmate, Jeremy “Tibiatowski admitted to calling a designated phone number to order and ultimately purchase heroin from the traffickers.
“Most of the customers knew the number and if they had to keep changing the number, it might slow down business,” said Shasky.
The heroin hotline worked just like a real hotline. Customers could call up and be connected with any of a number of dealers working in the area. The search warrant says Tibiatowski admitted to calling and ordering up 90 grams of heroin.
“When one person would go to jail another person would have the phone so they could continue doing business. And if someone had to go to the source, the phone would stay here where the customers were,” said Shasky.
Prosecutors say the heroin hotline doesn’t appear to be connected to the recent arrests and fatalities.
But it is a sign that the booming heroin market here is making dealers incautious and sloppy.
“We work them as fast as we can. Try to get them to the finish line before anything bad happens,” said Shasky.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension officials announced they’ve seen seven fatal overdoses in the past few weeks.
That’s in addition to several here in North Dakota in the same time frame.
