MESQUITE, Nev. – A suspected heroin trafficker was arrested in Mesquite last month, officials announced Tuesday.
Samuel Cuevas-Lima, 30, of Tijuana, Mexico, was safely taken into custody by Mesquite Police officers on June 22, following what was characterized as “a lengthy investigation.”
The investigation dealt with large amounts of heroin being trafficked into Mesquite, police said in a statement issued Tuesday.
During the course of the investigation, narcotics detectives arranged multiple buys of heroin from Cuevas-Lima who is alleged to be a known drug trafficker.
Police had knowledge that Cuevas-Lima would be in Mesquite on June 22 and also transporting a large amount of heroin for distribution. This ultimately resulted in Cuevas-Lima’s arrest.
Cuevas-Lima was charged with 14 felonies related to mid- and high-level drug trafficking, transporting a controlled substance and conspiracy to violate the Uniform Controlled Substances Act.
He was transported and booked into the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
What is heroin?
From the National Center on Drug Abuse:
Heroin is an opioid drug that is synthesized from morphine, a naturally occurring substance extracted from the seed pod of the Asian opium poppy plant. Heroin usually appears as a white or brown powder or as a black sticky substance, known as “black tar heroin.”
Heroin can be injected, smoked or inhaled.
Short-term effects of the drug include a state of euphoria, often called a “rush,” accompanied with warm flushing of skin, dry mouth, heavy feeling in the hands and feet, clouded thinking, alternate wakeful and drowsy states, itching, nausea, vomiting and slowed breathing and heart rate, according to the National Center on Drug Abuse.
Long-term effects are collapsed veins, abscesses (swollen tissue with pus), infection of the lining and valves in the heart, constipation and stomach cramps, liver or kidney disease and pneumonia.
Heroin overdoses may result in death.
Read more: Chasing the dragon: Heroin scourge in St. George, 1 mom’s story
Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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