REGION — Police officials on May 28 arrested five people in New York City involved in a drug ring operation that stretched from Long Island to Livingston Manor. Officials seized $5 million worth of heroin (over 26 pounds) and $115,000 in cash and two guns.

The operation was sparked by an overdose death in Livingston Manor two years ago, which prompted Sullivan County Sheriff Mike Schiff to track down the dealer with the help of multiple agencies and officials.

At the beginning of the investigation, members of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force (OCDESF), Group Z-41, and the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office pursued leads connected to the overdose death.

Sullivan County, like communities over much of the state, has experienced a steep rise in heroin overdoses, along with an increase in burglaries and related crimes. After the Livingston Manor death, Schiff decided to address the problem at its source, which was the Bronx and Washington Heights.

The investigation ultimately led to the identification of a wholesale drug organization. The drug group supplied local dealers in New York City and Upstate New York counties, including Westchester, Orange, Sullivan and Albany, as well as Long Island.

Working together, multiple law enforcement agencies from the local, state and federal level, tracked the heroin supply chain from distributors of glassine bags of heroin upstate to the group in the Bronx and Washington Heights headed by Orlando Rosario-Concepcion.

Agents and investigators identified active heroin mill locations, including the mill at 238 West 238th St., Apt. 25 in the Bronx, which churned out tens of thousands of individual dose glassine envelopes at a time.

On May 28, agents entered the apartment and interrupted workers in the act of packaging heroin into individual dose glassine envelopes. Thousands of filled glassine envelopes of heroin and quantities of the drug in loose powder form were recovered, along with all of the equipment and paraphernalia necessary to operate the mill, such as empty glassine envelopes, scales and grinders.

Simultaneously, agents and investigators outside the fifth story apartment observed heroin being thrown out of a window. Two of the dealers then climbed out of another window onto a fire escape. One broke into a neighboring apartment from the fire escape during the unsuccessful attempt at flight. Both men were immediately apprehended.

A second court-authorized search conducted at a related residence at 20 Laurel Hill Terrace, Apt. 3K, in Manhattan yielded approximately 11 kilograms of heroin (over 24 lbs.) Four kilograms were in uncut brick form and seven kilograms had already been packaged into glassine envelopes.

Agents and investigators also searched the Paterson, NJ home of Rosario-Concepcion located at 140 Belmont Ave., and recovered approximately $100,000 as well as a loaded handgun. Further, a Long Island warrant location at 1423 Chicago Ave., Bayshore, yielded approximately $15,000 cash, 5,000 glassine bags of heroin and a rifle.

Rosario-Concepcion was arrested along with associates Rodolofo Abreu-Crisotomo, Jonathan Almonte, Jean Carlos Rosario-Ortiz and Deckson Holguin Rosario.

Schiff said, “Our preliminary investigation revealed that drug dealers from the Bronx were driving all the way up to the rural areas of Sullivan County to peddle their poison to our children. Once we pinpointed the source, we called for assistance.” Sullivan County Coroner Alan Kesten brought the problem to Sheriff Schiff’s attention two years ago when he compiled statistics that showed that deaths from heroin overdoses in the county were exploding.