Police were probing Gwinnett dealer as three overdosed with his drugs

Immediately bust the dealer once you buy drugs from him undercover or take the riskier route with the bigger payoff and work your way slowly to his suppliers?

Police in Gwinnett County went the first route in 2014, working covertly for two months and methodically gathering intelligence on a Lilburn drug dealer they said helped them dismantle a massive drug ring with ties to Mexico. But it was all too late for three people who died after overdosing on the heroin – laced with a powerful painkiller called fentanyl – the dealer and his girlfriend sold them while they were under investigation. Their deaths underscore the plight of addicts and their families as well as the race-against-time dilemma for local police battling a nationwide opioid and heroin overdose epidemic, a crisis that is now killing more people than car crashes. The parents of one of the victims are now wondering whether their 33-year-old daughter would still be alive today if police had arrested the dealer sooner.