Curated By: Shankhyaneel Sarkar
Last Updated: September 22, 2023, 13:22 IST
New York, United States of America (USA)
Police remove fentanyl from a nursery days after a one-year-old child died from drug overdose. (Image: X/@CrimeInNYC)
A one-year old child died after inhaling fentanyl which was kept beneath his sleeping mat at the childcare centre in New York City.
The New York City Police found a “large quantity” of fentanyl, other drugs and paraphernalia concealed under a trapdoor at a New York City nursery days after a boy died there due to exposure to the drug.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) shared pictures on social media of more than a dozen plastic bags filled with brown and white powders, the BBC said in a report. They have also launched a probe.
Last Friday, a toddler, aged one, died of a drug overdose at the childcare centre. The nursery, named Divino Niño, reported that several children were feeling unwell, at first, but the people who ran the nursery have been arrested by the NYPD.
Police held them after Nicholas Dominici died after he possibly inhaled fentanyl which was hidden in the nap room under a mat where he was sleeping, the cops said. Three other children were admitted to the hospital as well. A urine test revealed the presence of the drug in their body.
The owner of the childcare centre, Grei Mendez, 36, and her tenant, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, now face federal charges of narcotics possession with intent to distribute resulting in death, and conspiracy charges, prosecutors told news agency BBC.
Manhattan US Attorney Damien Williams said these two defendants poisoned four babies and killed one of them. “We allege the defendants poisoned four babies, and killed one of them, because they were running a drug operation from a daycare centre,” Williams said.
A grand jury earlier formally charged the pair. They are being held without bail and could face life imprisonment if convicted.
Police said the drugs they found could kill at least 500,000 people.
Mendez is claiming she is unaware that the drugs were kept in the nursery and said her husband’s cousin is involved. Surveillance footage revealed that Mendez dialled her husband several times after finding the children ill and then called 9-1-1. After Brito, her husband, arrived, he removed several full shopping bags from the nursery.
The BBC report said that Mendez allegedly deleted approximately 20,000 text messages from her phone before her arrest, which were later recovered.
Brito is currently at large. He fled the scene after the incident. He has been identified in court documents as a co-conspirator. The US is witnessing a huge rise in drug and substance abuse related deaths due to fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller 50 times more powerful than heroin.
Over 100,000 people died from drug overdose in the US and an estimated 66% of those were linked to fentanyl.
