FBI charges Erie man in ‘large-scale’ drug operation – News – GoErie.com

Federal agents searched the man’s Lovell Place apartment Friday and found evidence of a drug operation, according to court documents.

The FBI charges that an Erie man acting as a “large-scale narcotics trafficker” was running a drug processing operation out of his Lovell Place apartment in Erie, according to new court documents.

A criminal complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Erie charges that the defendant, Jared D. Gomes, conspired to distribute 500 or more grams of cocaine and 40 or more grams of the powerful opioid fentanyl.

Federal investigators raided Gomes’ apartment in the Lovell Place apartment complex, at 153 E. 13th St., on Friday, according to the criminal complaint.

The search turned up several baggies containing about 500 grams of an unknown white and off-white powder, some of which is suspected to be fentanyl, Special Agent Michael Shaffer wrote in the complaint.

Shaffer in the complaint detailed an extensive investigation that focused on Gomes since October 2017.

“After initially receiving information from a cooperating informant, investigators have discovered that Gomes is a large-scale narcotics distributor,” Shaffer wrote.

Investigators also recovered a digital money counter, a digital scale, rolls of vacuum seal bags, a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, two boxes of medical face masks, a counterfeit money detector, numerous cell phones and several notebooks documenting money owed to Gomes in the office of his apartment, Shaffer wrote.

Gomes was arrested Friday, court records show. U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard A. Lanzillo ordered Gomes detained until he has a formal detention hearing on Monday.

The investigation also linked Gomes to quantities of suspected cocaine and fentanyl that were recovered during a traffic stop of a vehicle headed from New York to Erie in February 2018, according to the criminal complaint.

Pennsylvania State Police discovered that the vehicle, a 2014 Subaru Outback, had an electronically-operated secret compartment in the rear hatchback of the vehicle that contained 2 kilograms of a substance that field-tested positive for cocaine and more than 96 grams of fentanyl, according to the complaint.

A female associate of Gomes was driving the vehicle at the time of the traffic stop, which occurred on Interstate 80, Shaffer wrote in the complaint. The woman said she borrowed the car from a friend to visit her boyfriend in Erie and asked for a lawyer when the troopers asked for the name of her boyfriend, according to the complaint.

The troopers did not mention the ongoing investigation into Gomes so as not to alert the woman, but seized two cell phones and found a receipt with Gomes’ name and phone number on it inside the vehicle, according to the complaint.

Investigators subpoenaed Gomes’ phone records and found that he had been receiving regular telephone calls from an inmate at the Yazoo City Low federal prison in Mississippi, Shaffer wrote. A review of recorded prison phone calls between Gomes and the inmate showed that Gomes used coded language to inform the inmate about the 2 kilograms of cocaine that were lost when the woman was stopped by Pennsylvania State Police, according to the complaint.

A fingerprint recovered from one of the baggies of fentanyl in the vehicle was matched to Gomes, Shaffer wrote, and the vacuum-seal bags recovered from Gomes’ apartment are the same brand and size as those recovered from the Subaru.

The complaint does not state when the FBI began investigating Gomes, but charges that investigators observed him driving the Subaru on numerous occasions beginning in October 2017.

Gomes left Erie in the Subaru on Feb. 19, 2018, and arrived in New York City later that day, according to the complaint. The woman was stopped driving the vehicle back to Erie on Feb. 21, 2018, Shaffer wrote.

Lanzillo will decide at Monday’s hearing whether Gomes will be granted bond while he awaits prosecution in the case.

Madeleine O’Neill can be reached at 870-1728 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ETNoneill.