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WARREN -- A sting operation conducted by the Drug Enforcement Agency used a GPS tracking device and invisible dye to trace a package containing a synthetic opioid to a Warren man.
Robert Lang, 29, was arrested Wednesday and is being housed at the Mahoning County jail facing federal charges of attempted possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance.
Lang appeared in U.S. District Court represented by public defender David E. Johnson. Assistant United States attorney Yasmine T. Makridis was the prosecuting attorney.
An affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court states that a Homeland Security special agent was informed by FedEx Corporate Security that a package addressed to a home on Clearwater Street NW in Warren was opened.
Among the contents of the package were toys, kinetic sand, bags of peanuts and a shrink-wrapped kilogram brick wrapped inside a towel.
The contents of the package were sent by the special agent to the DEA Youngstown Resident Office for testing using a narcotics scanner that revealed the presence of hexanoyl fentanyl hydrochloride, a synthetic opioid.
A search warrant for the Clearwater Street home was authorized by U.S. magistrate Judge Carmen E. Henderson of the Northern District of Ohio.
After investigators seized the suspected kilogram of fentanyl, DEA investigators replaced the original contents of the package with a GPS-tracked fake kilogram of a noncontrolled substance to deliver to the address.
Aside from tracking the package up to its delivery point, investigators placed a sensor inside the package that would alert investigators when the recipient opened it. The affidavit states that investigators also sprayed an invisible dye inside the package that adheres to the skin of the individual that handles the contents of the package.
An undercover DEA investigator delivered the package as additional investigators monitored the home and package via surveillance.
Lang arrived to the Clearwater Street NW address around 4:25 p.m. and picked up the package from a woman police observed inside the home.
After Lang retrieved the package, investigators tracked the sensor as Lang delivered the package to a home on Stephens Avenue NW.
Investigators called for Lang to step out of the home, where he was detained. The shipping box was found by investigators inside a garbage can in the driveway of the home. The fake kilogram of fentanyl was found on the roof.
An ultraviolet light was used by investigators on Lang's hands revealing them to be covered in a fluorescent green dye sprayed on the contents of the package.
During an interview with police inside the Trumbull County Sheriff's Office, Lang told investigators he was not aware of what was inside the package, telling authorities he was told by the shipper only the tracking number and that the package had been delivered.
Lang said he told a woman, who investigators thought to be the woman they observed at the home, to put the package in her car. He also told investigators that he had the shipper put that same woman's son as the package's recipient.
Believing he was being followed, Lang told investigators that he tried to open the box while driving. He told investigators that in the past he had received three packages from the sender containing narcotics.