Heroin

A pair of uniformed Baltimore police officers keeping tabs on a convicted drug dealer released from prison in December arrested the man yesterday and recovered about 1,500 single-serving packages of suspected heroin.A loaded 9mm Ruger handgun was also confiscated during the arrest.Western District Officers Kevin Turner, 24, and Warren Smith, 25, made the bust about 9:45 a.m. yesterday in the 1600 block of West Fayette St., a neighborhood, police said, where drug traffic is blatant and the dealers armed and arrogant.

A Baltimore County woman facing a second trial in the murder of her husband has been charged with taking heroin into a Hagerstown prison where a son is serving time on drug charges.Marie Delores Apostoledes, 62, was arrested Friday morning after state police received a tip that she was carrying drugs intended for Frederick Apostoledes, authorities said.Mrs. Apostoledes of Dundalk was charged with possessing heroin. She was released from the Washington County Detention Center Saturday after posting a $2,500 bond.

County police narcotics investigators confiscated more than 400 grams of cocaine and five grams of heroin from two passengers Tuesday at the BWI Amtrak station.Members of the Narcotics Interdiction Unitwere working at the station in Linthicum at about 7 p.m. when they saw two men get off a train from New York.They began talking to the men separately and asked to search their bags. The detectives found 491.4 grams of cocaine in a bag belonging to one of the men. Police also confiscated 10 separate packages of heroin that they say the second man tried to throw to the ground.

The state medical examiner confirmed yesterday that a heroin overdose caused the death of a 17-year-old Glenelg High School graduate who was found slumped against a tree near the Triadelphia Reservoir in Dayton last week.Dr. Margarita Korell, who performed the autopsy on Damien Massella of the 3200 block of Roscommon Drive, said that heroin, injected by a needle, stopped the boy's breathing and heartbeat. The official cause of death was described as "narcotic intoxication.""Heroin is a depressant of the respiratory system," Korell said.

A federal grand jury has indicted seven Baltimore men who prosecutors say are part of a city heroin ring, the U.S. attorney's office announced yesterday. All have been charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin. Three were also charged with possession with intent to distribute heroin, and Chaka Brewer, 28, was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio has said prosecuting felons in possession of firearms and dismantling drug organizations are top goals for his office.

A 42-year-old Baltimore man was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison yesterday for conspiring to sell heroin as part of what federal authorities call a large-scale drug organization that operated in the Baltimore and Washington areas, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Craig Scott was convicted by a jury in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt in December. Authorities said he obtained heroin from his 60-year-old mother, Gwendolyn Levi, who stored drugs in the basement of her Elkridge home.

Eight members of a drug ring that sold up to $20,000 worth of heroin a week from an East Baltimore housing project pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy charges.The four men and four women who pleaded guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court to conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine were among more than 80 charged in the 18-month investigation of alleged kingpin Reginald L. "Reds" Green, prosecutors said.That investigation led to charges in a $6.5 million-a-week heroin ring blamed for the interstate distribution of the potent opiate substitute fentanyl, which has been linked to 27 Maryland deaths.

Under the shade of a small-brimmed hat, J. D. glides into the Fells Point diner wrapped in the warm embrace of a heroin injection administered minutes earlier at his kitchen table, down the street, past the late afternoon traffic on Aliceanna Street.He oozes into a rear booth, sits with his back to the wall and orders a coffee and a monstrous wedge of strawberry shortcake. He scratches his arms and legs while talking to two men in the booth. Freshly fueled heroin junkies crave sweets and scratch a lot.J.

A 21-year-old Maryland Institute College of Art junior from Crofton died early yesterday after what college officials say appears to have been a heroin overdose suffered in her off-campus apartment in the 2900 block of N. Calvert St. The student, Carrie Macedonia, was taken to Union Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead early this morning, said the college's spokeswoman, Kim Carlin. The college is awaiting official confirmation from the hospital about the cause of the death, but conversations with Macedonia's roommate, another student, have given officials reason to believe that Macedonia died of a heroin overdose, Carlin said.

A federal jury in Baltimore convicted a Prince George's County couple yesterday of using human "swallowers" to carry heroin in their stomachs while flying to the United States from Africa. Godfrey Bonsu, 44, and his wife, Victoria Boateng, 42, both of Bowie were convicted of conspiracy to import heroin and distribute the drug. According to the prosecution's evidence presented at trial, Bonsu and Boateng recruited couriers from Ghana in 2003 and 2004 to smuggle heroin from Ghana, Germany and England.