Major Heroin Stash Buried in Backyard

,

[gtxvideo vid=”LZ1Q5JxA” playlist=”” pid=”Bbt3TRDe” thumb=”http://player.gtxcel.com/thumbs/LZ1Q5JxA.jpg” vtitle=”heroin bust”]

SALISBURY, NC — $70,000 worth of heroin, buried right in the backyard, led to a major drug bust in Salisbury. Neighbors say they had no clue the man living just a few doors down was trafficking the dangerous drug on their street.

“I mean that’s really, that’s too close to home right there,” said neighbor Chris Goodman.

Goodman lives on the quiet street, across from the Salisbury City Park, just a few doors down from a drug dealer; a dealer busted by multiple law enforcement agencies on Monday.

Investigators used the Rowan County Sheriff’s Department drug sniffing dog to find 530 grams of black tar heroin behind a house in a quiet neighborhood on North Jackson Street in Salisbury. $70,000 worth of the drug in a PVC pipe in a hole behind the house, covered in coffee grounds to try and hide the smell.

Julian Lepe-Garcia is being held in the Mecklenburg County Jail, charged with conspiring to and trafficking heroin. The 35-year-old is also under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold. Β 

Investigators also found a balloon filled with heroin, as well as drug records and paraphernalia used in the distribution of the drug, inside the duplex.

“I’m glad they found it,” says Salisbury resident Jenny Godman. “I don’t need my dogs or my grandkids getting in it.”

“It don’t need to be in our neighborhood. All that’s going to do is cause people get on it, and then they’re going to be ripping us off and taking our belongings,” says Chris Goodman. “Or come in and hurt one of us.”

Heroin arrests have spiked in Charlotte. Lancaster and Union counties, and the town of Mint Hill, have seen trafficking busts this year.

Local DEA agents say the drug is at epidemic levels, and spreading its tentacles.

“I heard about the heroin and people up in Charlotte and they said it was moving further and further, but I didn’t know that we were sitting on top of it right here you know, four houses from my house,” says Goodman. Β  Β Β 

Authorities are not saying if this arrest has any connections to gang activity.

A study from UNC-Chapel Hill says heroin deaths in North Carolina have tripled in the last few years, with the average age of those dying getting substantially younger.