Lackawanna County detectives charged a Scranton man with felony and misdemeanor drug counts after an undercover cocaine investigation in the city’s South Side, District Attorney Brian Gallagher announced.
County detectives and Scranton police arrested Emanuel Vazquez Declet, 33, 1513 Pittston Ave., on Wednesday after arranging the controlled purchase of cocaine using a confidential informant.
Investigators surveilling near Pittston Avenue and Gibbons Street observed him “facilitate” the drug transaction from a white Honda Accord, a press release issued by the district attorney’s office notes.
Authorities subsequently took Vazquez Declet, who ultimately confessed to delivering the cocaine and taking the “buy money,” into custody at Ripple Street and Pittston Avenue, according to charging documents. Investigators who searched his vehicle located “a sum of the buy money” in a cigarette pack.
The district attorney’s office’s drug unit and the Scranton Police Department’s street crimes unit jointly conducted the investigation that resulted in Vazquez Declet’s arrest.
“It is critically important to conduct proactive, intelligence-driven drug enforcement in the City of Scranton,” Gallagher said in the press release. “Drug trafficking damages neighborhoods, fuels violence and threatens the safety of our families. The Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Drug Taskforce will continue working with our law-enforcement partners to identify drug dealers, conduct controlled investigations and remove illegal narcotics from our neighborhoods.”
Vazquez Declet faces a felony count each of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and criminal use of a communication facility, as well as a misdemeanor count each of possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
He remains in Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled for Thursday.