Cops find 5K doses of heroin, some stamped with Trump’s face

A Hernando County man who was the subject of a heroin trafficking investigation for at least six months was found with around 5,000 doses of heroin in his car.

Not only was the amount surprising to the sheriff’s office — namely because it was Hernando’s biggest drug bust according to Sheriff Al Nienhuis — but some of the doses had been stamped with the names and faces of people like Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Pablo Escobar and President Donald Trump.

According to Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis, Kevin Scott Johnson was arrested and faces charges of heroin trafficking, cocaine and heroin possession, unlawful use of a two-way communication system and habitual driving with license suspended.

In the press conference Friday, Sheriff Nienhuis said the U.S. Postal Service intercepted a package last May directed to Johnson from the northeastern U.S. In it contained 550 doses of heroin, which according to Nienhuis had a street value of between $5,500 and $11,000.

Nienhuis said Johnson has a history with law enforcement, having been arrested in New Jersey for heroin-related charges from 1989 to 2001.

The sheriff’s office caught wind that Johnson was headed up to the northeastern U.S. to make a purchase to be shipped down to him in Florida, and they made a traffic stop as he was re-entering the county.

Law enforcement found the 5,000 doses “almost immediately” in the mail, Nienhuis said.

The sheriff’s office continues to comb through the evidence for forensics that can be used for prosecution.

“We are very blessed here in Hernando County that we don’t have some of the issues with heroin that some of our brothers and sisters in southwest Florida and southeast Florida have,” Nienhuis said, pointing out that sheriff’s offices like in Manatee County have started to carry Narcan, the opioid overdose antidote.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was also at the press conference and applauded the undercover detectives who work cases like these.

“They are out there on the streets with these monsters taking them off the streets who are trying to kill our kids,” Bondi said.

The Florida attorney general said she would make sure Trump would receive one of the packages after the case was over to put in the Oval Office to remind him of “all the good he’s doing,” she said.

Bondi added that it was a “big mistake” putting the president’s photo on the doses, saying that Trump would be “our most fierce advocate for getting this junk off of our streets.”

“I think the wall might get built a little faster,” she said because of the stamp.

Johnson’s bail is set at $75,000.

This story was originally published February 3, 2017 at 2:31 PM with the headline "Cops find 5K doses of heroin, some stamped with Trump’s face."