CONCORD – Following a 4-day trial, a federal jury found Dominican national Andri Pimental Arias, 23, guilty last Friday for conspiring to distribute and possessing with intent to distribute more than 400 grams of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of fentanyl, U.S. Attorney Erin Creegan announces. Arias was convicted for his role in a multistate fentanyl trafficking conspiracy. United States District Court Judge Landya B. McCafferty has set sentencing for January 7, 2027. According to the testimony and evidence presented at trial, beginning in the fall of 2022, the Drug Enforcement Administration investigated a Lawrence, Massachusetts-based drug trafficking organization that distributed fentanyl across New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The organization used social media, messaging applications, and a dedicated phone line to take drug orders and send runners to make deliveries. The evidence showed that Pimentel Arias acted as one such runner, personally distributing more than 400 grams of fentanyl on three separate occasions between September and October 2022, in response to orders placed through the organization’s dispatch phone line.The Drug Enforcement Administration led the investigation, with valuable assistance provided by the Nashua Police Department and New Hampshire State Police. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Cesar A. Vega and Mike Shannon are prosecuting the case. This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF New Hampshire comprises agents and officers from FBI, HSI, IRS, DEA, ATF, USMS, and DSS with the prosecution being led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice