25 ‘dopes’ busted over heroin ring

TWENTY-FIVE people were indicted Friday in “Operation Dirty Dope,” a sting that busted up a massive, interstate heroin ring, said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Investigators from Schneiderman’s office and other agencies used wiretaps, confidential informants and undercover surveillance to track the alleged traffickers moving heroin and Fentanyl through the region.

More than 33 kilos of heroin and two kilos of the “highly potent” painkiller Fentanyl were taken off the streets by Schneiderman’s office and agents with the New York State Police and the Massachusetts DEA Task Force.

The street value of the confiscated drugs is more than $13 million, Schneiderman said.

“This is one of our state’s biggest heroin takedowns and it is the largest drug bust in the history of the Office of the New York State Attorney General and our organized crime task force,” he said.

The drug peddlers were cutting the heroin with things like Novocain, nail polish remover and even roach spray, according to Schneiderman.

The cutting agents boosted the weight of the heroin — making smaller amounts more lucrative, the AG said.

“Operation Dirty Dope” smashed a drug-smuggling ring that stretched from Mexico to Tucson, Ariz., to the Bronx, Washington Heights and parts of Pennsylvania, authorities said.

From there, the dangerous were trafficked to Massachusetts.

The regions have seen overdoses in recent months of people who didn’t know they were buying heroin laced with dangerous chemicals, Schneiderman said.

“This is a very sophisticated operation and this was a completely soulless operation ... People struggling with addiction were the targets of these traffickers. We allege that they sometimes used addicts as human guinea pigs to test the heroin laced with deadly cutting agents just to see if it killed them,” he said.

The sting also targeted the pushers specifically, he added. Law enforcement did not go after the buyers struggling with addiction, he said.

“We know that we cannot arrest our way out of a drug epidemic. Law enforcement alone will not stop heroin and opioid abuse,” Schneiderman said.

The indictments were unsealed Friday in Bronx County Court. drugs