New Hampshire drug bust leads to charges against 22

Twenty-two people have been charged in a major drug trafficking ring busted in New Hampshire.

Manchester police say they dismantled a local drug dealing organization that has allegedly been supplying the area with fentanyl and crack cocaine for more than four years.

Investigators identified 53-year-old Juan Ramon Soto Baez, aka "Ricky," from Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, as the leader of the operation. His son, 29-year-old Osvaldo David Soto Jimenez, and his brother, 38-year-old Flemin Soto Baez, are among those arrested this week, charged with drug trafficking.

Law enforcement seized approximately 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, 150 grams of crack, approximately a quarter of a kilo of fentanyl, 100 bags of suspected drug packages for sale, approximately $26,000 in cash and four firearms.

"This was a sophisticated operation, it was an operation that was family-operated, but it had a hierarchy, it was well-organized," said Jane Young, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Hampshire. "They utilized a business model indicative of a drug trafficking operation that included dispatch phones and runners in the form of lieutenants, in the form of traffickers. Those runners would arrive in vehicles here in the city and meet with individuals in pre-determined locations to sell them drugs. often they would sell those drugs in vehicles."

Investigators learned that there were usually three dispatch phones in simultaneous operation, each used by a different lieutenant in the drug trafficking organization, according to the indictment. Investigators began using five different cooperating sources to conduct controlled narcotics purchases from the various dispatch phones. Since mid-2022, investigators conducted over 50 such transactions, obtaining controlled substances, generally fentanyl and crack, but occasionally other substances like tramadol, heroin, cocaine hydrochloride and fentanyl analogues.

Investigators identified Flemin Soto Baez as one of the people who controlled one of the dispatch phones.

Young described the organization as disciplined, operating on a daily basis with established hours of operation, generally between 10:00 a.m. and 8 p.m.

She said Wednesday afternoon nine of the people indicted in this investigation had not been arrested yet.

Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg last year there were over 700 overdoses in Manchester, 79 of which were fatal. He said the results of this investigation are due to countless hours of work by his officers and their state and federal partners.

"It's satisfying, but we are not naïve to the fact that, OK, who is going to fill that void, and when unfortunately, they know, or fortunately, they are going to keep an eye on it and get back after it because the problem is not going to stop," said Aldenberg.