The drug trade hits home

Editor's note: This is the first in a four-part series of articles exploring the drug trade coming in or traveling through Windham County. This article explores the apparent increase in drug-related activity in the area.

BRATTLEBORO - In a small, cramped conference room at the Brattleboro Police Department, a pile of assorted drugs and bags of money sat in heat-sealed plastic bags on a long narrow table.

Two pounds of marijuana seized from a house on Upper Dummerston Road filled the room with a potent smell. Smaller bags containing individually wrapped portions of cocaine, some in powder form, some as crack-rock, were associated with various arrests around town this year. Even smaller bags held tiny paper packages, or bindles, of heroin, small enough that it barely represented the powerful high the drug could deliver to its user.

On the table, as detectives roamed around and identified various substances before them, was the seized collection from just a handful of recent arrests in Brattleboro.

While the collection may not be substantial when compared to larger cities, it is a reminder that Brattleboro, and Windham County in general, has its own place in the drug trade.

The police department is seeing an increase in drug activity in town, particularly with cocaine, according to Detective Mark Carignan.

A series of investigations led to a flurry of cocaine-related arrests this year. In one of the police

department's recent arrests, two brothers were busted for selling cocaine. The two were the target of an investigation that stretched on for months and included the use of confidential informants, body wires and surveillance and search warrants, police said.

Hector A. Vargas, 20, of Brattleboro, and his brother Xavier Vargas, 20, of Walpole, N.H., are facing four counts of sale of cocaine among them. Hector Vargas was ordered held on $25,000 bail and ordered to appear at Windham District Court. Xavier Vargas was ordered held on $5,000 bail.

Within the last month or so, two New Jersey men were arrested for cocaine charges as well. On July 7, Aaron Taliaferro, 26, of Jersey City, N.J., was arrested after a raid at a South Main Street residence. Taliaferro had more than an ounce of cocaine that was packaged in small, individual bags.

Then, a few weeks ago, Jorge L. Delaoz, 38, of Elizabeth, N.J., was arrested on South Main Street with about an ounce of cocaine as well. Police did not say whether Delaoz's and Taliaferro's cocaine sale operations were related, but Carignan did say in many drug investigations, separate cases sometimes meld together.

"They're very fluid, dynamic investigations," he said. That fact, he said, is in the nature of drug investigations in general.

At the end of a department-issued press release about the Vargas arrests, police added that "additional arrests are expected in this case."

While Carignan couldn't get into specifics, he said "that almost all these investigations are almost constantly ongoing."

Although it appears that cocaine arrests are on the rise, Carignan said that doesn't necessarily mean drug dealing in the area has increased by a great amount.

"A lot of it has to do with timing," he said. Many investigations that police were pursuing happened to finish at the same time. Another factor, he said, is that the way drug dealing happens in the area is changing.

"Yes, I would say that it is on the rise," Carignan said of local cocaine use. But with more opportunities for drug dealers in southern Vermont, the way drugs get here has changed.

Up until the late 1990s, the way the drug market worked in Brattleboro was that typically a group of friends would pool money together and venture into one of the larger cities to our south -- places with available drugs like Springfield and Holyoke, Mass., and Hartford, Conn.

But now, many dealers are bringing their operations directly into town and selling their drugs instead of waiting for the users to come to them.

"The reason for that is strictly profit-based," Carignan said. Dealers usually are making a 300 to 400 percent profit margin.

"The point is that rather than people coming down, there are legitimate urban dealers who are coming up here and selling it themselves," Carignan said.

A sign of that drug trafficking route came after a Brattleboro man was convicted of federal charges stemming from an extensive investigation of drug trafficking between Brattleboro and Springfield, Mass.

Torren Boyd, 26, was sentenced to five years in prison in June for possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute. Boyd was caught selling drugs to a confidential informant who was working for the Vermont Drug Task Force.

The drugs also come from larger cities into the northern parts of the county. A Bellows Falls woman was sentenced in federal court earlier this year for her role in distributing crack cocaine out of a local apartment.

The drugs were brought into Bellows Falls by two New York men.

The signs that cocaine is on the rise come from elsewhere as well. The number of people in the state who have been admitted to a treatment facility with cocaine as a primary substance was at about 200 in 2005, according to Barbara Cimaglio, deputy commissioner for alcohol and drug abuse programs at the Vermont Department of Health. In 2006, that number jumped to about 500.

"There has been some growth there," she said, adding that people in the state are concerned cocaine use could become a serious threat.

Carignan said it is crucial that people are aware of the threat.

"The more the public is aware of what's happening, the more they can help to prevent it," he said.

It would be nearly impossible to get everyone to stop using hard drugs, Carignan said, but what can be done is create an environment where it is uncomfortable for drug dealers to set up shop in the community.

"It's sort of police's responsibility to work on the supply end, but it's society's responsibility to work on the demand end."

Next: What role does Interstate 91 play in New England's drug trade?

Patrick J. Crowley can be reached at pcrowley@reform-er.com, or 802-254-2311, ext. 277.

Part 2: The perfect route

Part 3: The meth issue: No one is immune

Part 4: Searching for the cure

Part 5: Officials take a case-by-case approach