Jump in heroin use brings rise in prosecutions

The crackdown on a surge of heroin use in Northern Virginia and across the state is intensifying, with a series of convictions and sentencings over the past month at federal courthouses in Alexandria and Richmond.

The recent cases of heroin trafficking extend throughout the region and include couriers from the Fredericksburg area smuggling the drug in from Mexico, a ring that brought heroin from New Jersey to Prince William County and another that smuggled it from New York to Richmond, prosecutors said. Nine people have been convicted in the three investigations, and two are awaiting trial.

"We have seen a significant increase in heroin trafficking in Northern Virginia, particularly in areas that have historically not experienced heavy drug use," Neil H. MacBride, the U.S. attorney in Alexandria, said in an interview. He cited areas such as Prince William and some outer suburban areas such as Fauquier County.

MacBride said agents and prosecutors are especially concerned about two trends. First, more people addicted to prescription pain medications are switching to heroin. And second, Mexican drug suppliers are using routes long established for cocaine to also move heroin.

"We will continue to, as appropriate, aggressively prosecute drug rings," added MacBride, who became U.S. attorney Sept. 15.

The increase in cases reflects what authorities say is the growing availability of heroin, which is nearly always smuggled into the United States from Colombia and Mexico. Long linked to addition and death, heroin has become the drug of choice for many Washington area youths, according to officials and interviews with young people.

Federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia began to focus on the drug last year when they learned that heroin use was surging in the Centreville area. The overdose death of a 19-year-old woman triggered a broad investigation of a Fairfax County heroin ring that supplied the drugs involved in the deaths of four young people. In all, 15 young people and a supplier in his 30s were convicted of drug crimes in a conspiracy that prosecutors said included dozens of heroin users, almost all of them onetime students at Westfield High School.

In one of the recent cases, Leopoldo Cabrera-Beltran, 33, of Columbus, Neb., was convicted Oct. 13 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria of conspiring to import and distribute heroin and cocaine from Mexico to the United States. According to court documents and evidence at the three-day trial, he recruited Fredericksburg area couriers to smuggle multiple-kilogram loads of the drugs into the United States using secret compartments built into cars.

Prosecutors said the drugs were mostly distributed in the Chicago area. An attorney for Cabrera-Beltran did not return telephone calls.

The New Jersey-Prince William connection led to charges against seven people in Alexandria federal court. Prosecutors said the seven participated in a heroin trafficking conspiracy in which they purchased the drug from suppliers in New Jersey and distributed it in the Manassas and Manassas Park area. Four people pleaded guilty or were sentenced in Alexandria federal court over the past two weeks. A fifth is awaiting sentencing, and two others are awaiting trial.

In U.S. District Court in Richmond, three people pleaded guilty over the past month in what prosecutors say was a ring that purchased large amounts of heroin in New York and distributed it in the Richmond area.