{"id":264918,"date":"2026-05-09T16:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T16:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/264918\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T16:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T16:26:07","slug":"fentanyl-trafficker-faces-federal-prosecution-after-st-lucie-county-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/264918\/","title":{"rendered":"Fentanyl trafficker faces federal prosecution after St. Lucie County arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FORT PIERCE, Fla. \u2014 A Fort Pierce man faces federal prosecution after detectives arrested him on fentanyl trafficking charges following a long-term narcotics investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Detectives with the St. Lucie County Sheriff&#8217;s Office Special Investigations Division, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration, arrested Heriberto Ortiz, 58, on May 5, 2026. He was taken into custody without incident.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation centered on the trafficking of ounce quantities of fentanyl. Ortiz remains in custody at the St. Lucie County Jail.<\/p>\n<p>Sheriff Richard Del Toro said the arrest sends a clear message.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you choose to traffic fentanyl or any illegal drugs in St. Lucie County, you picked the wrong county,&#8221; Del Toro said. &#8220;We will find you, arrest you, and pursue the toughest prosecution possible. We will not tolerate poison in our community.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE, Fla. \u2014 A Fort Pierce man faces federal prosecution after detectives arrested him on fentanyl trafficking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-264918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}