EMMAUS, Pa. – Authorities have charged 10 people they say operated a Lehigh County-based drug trafficking organization, including an Emmaus man accused of being its leader.<\/p>\n
40-year-old Joaquin \u201cKino\u201d Gonzalez, of Emmaus, led the organization, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday\u2019s office said in a news release.<\/p>\n
Sunday said the group used suppliers in Mexico to traffic fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine in multiple Pennsylvania counties.<\/p>\n
The AG\u2019s office said arrests were made in recent days. The Allentown Police Department assisted in Gonzalez\u2019s arrest over the weekend, according to the news release.<\/p>\n
Each of the 10 people is charged with corrupt organizations, possession with intent to deliver, conspiracy, and related offenses, the AG\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
The AG\u2019s office said the collaborative investigation began in 2024 and involved searches at numerous locations and seizures of large quantities of narcotics.<\/p>\n
Investigators determined Gonzalez had a connection in Southern California, where a Mexican trafficking organization supplied him with drugs for distribution in Pennsylvania, according to the news release.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a high-level, cross-country operation that polluted neighborhoods across the eastern part of the Commonwealth with deadly poisons,\u201d Attorney General Sunday said.<\/p>\n
\u201cClosing down drug-trafficking pipelines remains a top priority for my office, as these traffickers value dollars over human lives, and we have seen, time and time again, the deadly violence attached to drug trafficking groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 10 people charged are:<\/p>\n
Joaquin Gonzalez, 40, of Emmaus<\/p>\n
Danny Cancel, 25, of Bethlehem<\/p>\n
Joel Castro, 41, of Orefield<\/p>\n
Sally Garcia-Colon, 39, of Emmaus<\/p>\n
Jorge Marrero-Rodriguez, 60, of Allentown<\/p>\n
Jordan Pagan, 37, of Leola<\/p>\n
John Pagan DeJesus, 49, of Whitehall<\/p>\n
Israel Perez, 45, of Bethlehem<\/p>\n
Anthony Planas, 42, of Bethlehem<\/p>\n
Hanzel Rivera, 37, of Bethlehem<\/p>\n
The AG\u2019s office said Gonzalez\u2019s bail was set at $1 million. The nine other people are also in custody, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Preliminary hearings are scheduled for May 12.<\/p>\n
In 2024, investigators saw Gonzalez deliver six pounds of methamphetamine to Pagan, according to the AG\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Additionally, investigators discovered approximately four pounds of methamphetamine, seven pounds of marijuana, and $2,500 in cash during a traffic stop involving Rivera, the AG\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
The AG\u2019s office said that during searches, investigators seized:<\/p>\n
5 pounds of fentanyl<\/p>\n
1.7 pounds of heroin<\/p>\n
3,000 fentanyl pills<\/p>\n
4.48 pounds of methamphetamine<\/p>\n
4.6 pounds of cocaine<\/p>\n
11.2 pounds of marijuana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EMMAUS, Pa. – Authorities have charged 10 people they say operated a Lehigh County-based drug trafficking organization, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2602,153,155,154,10739,84309,12313,3297,36529,4601],"class_list":["post-189316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown-police-department","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-cocaine","tag-drug-trafficking-organization","tag-fentanyl","tag-marijuana","tag-methamphetamine","tag-pennsylvania-attorney-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}