A man will serve nearly two decades in federal prison for making a blend of “highly potent” opioids in his Duluth apartment and selling massive quantities of it, prosecutors said.
Nicholas Hernandez-Gonzalez was sentenced to 17 years and six months of prison time after admitting to selling mixtures of fentanyl and other drugs, according to U.S. Attorney BJay Pak.
Federal prosecutors said Hernandez-Gonzalez sold a drug that he claimed was heroin. In actuality, it was a mixture of synthetic opioids including fentanyl and carfentanil, Pak said.
“Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, and carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl,” Pak said.
Homeland Security investigators identified Hernandez-Gonzalez as a dealer in April 2019, Pak said. A month later, a Georgia State Patrol trooper stopped him soon after he left his apartment.
The trooper seized a cellophane-wrapped bundle from Hernandez-Gonzalez’s car and found a kilogram of heroin and fentanyl inside. Hernandez-Gonzalez said the bundle contained heroin and that he was delivering it to a customer.
Later in the day, Homeland Security officials searched his apartment in Duluth and found nearly 10.5 kilograms of heroin, fentanyl and carfentanil, Pak said.
Investigators also found a gun and “evidence that Hernandez-Gonzalez had been mixing various substances in the sparsely furnished apartment,” Pak said.
“Specifically, one large plastic box in the master bedroom contained three kilograms of heroin and another box contained nearly four kilograms of a mixture of fentanyl and carfentanil,” he said.
Ten bundles of powder that contained methamphetamine and another kilogram of fentanyl mixtures were found hidden in a hole cut into Hernandez-Gonzalez’s closet, Pak said.
Hernandez-Gonzalez was convicted of possessing with intent to distribute multiple kilograms of fentanyl and other opioids, Pak said. A federal judge ordered Hernandez-Gonzalez to serve five years of supervised release after his prison sentence.
According to immigration records, Hernandez-Gonzalez is in the United States illegally and had been deported to his homeland of Mexico on two occasions in 2013.
He will be deported again following his prison sentence, Pak said.
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