SAN ANTONIO - The DEA and San Antonio Police announced Tuesday they have busted a major East Side drug ring. Twelve people were arrested for their involvement in distributing heroin following a year long investigation. They were doing everything to push their drugs, including using babies.
Agents say some of that drug trafficking took place at a home on Burnet Street, a restaurant off East Houston and right in front of children at W.W. White Elementary School.-- right in front of young children.
“This heroin, which is at least 85% purity or more, was impacting our city,” explained DEA Special Agent Mauricio Fernandez.
For the last two decades, DEA agents say they've watched Manuel Rios build a drug organization that infested the East Side with heroin. The criminals transported the drugs from Guerrero, Mexico, and then sold them on our streets.
The most disturbing evidence they uncovered was how dealers were using children to traffic the drugs.
“They were utilizing babies,” explained Fernandez. “Putting drugs in the diapers of babies to move this heroin.”
San Antonio Police and the DEA worked hard to take down 63-year-old Rios and his top five distributors. Investigators determined Rios, who had been out on bond for another drug case, was moving four pounds of heroin a month, making a monthly profit of more than $200,000 dollars.
