By Kevin Krause and Zaeem Shaikh
11:17 AM on Feb 15, 2023 CST — Updated at 4:33 PM on Feb 15, 2023 CST Preformed Wire Grip
Federal authorities and Carrollton police arrested a man they accuse of being the “main source of supply” of fentanyl in connection with the deaths and hospitalizations of Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD students, officials said in a news conference Wednesday.
U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton said authorities on Tuesday arrested Jason Xavier Villanueva, 22, in connection with the case.
Villanueva is a former R.L. Turner High School student, according to a federal complaint. He made his first appearance in federal court on Wednesday afternoon.
Simonton said authorities believe that Villanueva and the two other people arrested in the case — Luis Eduardo Navarrete and Magaly Mejia Cano — are linked to as many as 10 juvenile overdoses in the area, three of them fatal.
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Simonton said that the overdoses occurred over a span of a six months and that the ages of the victims ranged in age from 13 to 17.
Villanueva is accused of supplying fentanyl to Navarrete and Cano as well as underage drug dealers. He is facing a charge of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
The three defendants allegedly “trafficked pills … to juvenile dealers in Carrollton, who went on to sell to friends and classmates,” authorities said.
The defendants, if convicted, each face up to 20 years in federal prison.
The news conference featuring Simonton, DEA Dallas Special Agent in Charge Eduardo Chávez and Carrollton Police Chief Roberto Arredondo, came 10 days after a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court revealed two people were accused of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl.
Those arrests were related to the deaths of three Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD students and hospitalizations of six others in a string of overdoses. The youngest person to overdose was 13, according to court records.
In January, federal drug agents and Carrollton police began looking into medical emergencies with evidence of fentanyl overdoses. They traced each one to a Carrollton house on Highland Drive just blocks from R.L. Turner High School, court records show. There, federal authorities say, juvenile dealers as young as 14 picked up drugs to sell to classmates.
Navarrete, 21, and Cano, 29, were arrested and are still being held in federal custody. The complaint against the two described the drugs they distributed as “fake Percocet and OxyContin” tablets laced with fentanyl.
The fatalities and overdoses involve teens enrolled in R.L. Turner, DeWitt Perry Middle School and Dan F. Long Middle School. The most recent death linked to the related fentanyl overdoses occurred Feb. 1, court records state.
Carrollton police identified eight juvenile dealers with “moderate to significant involvement” in selling the blue M30 pills with fentanyl, also known as “blues.” The alleged dealers, ages 14 to 17, are students at R.L. Turner, officials said. Simonton said state, not federal, authorities will handle any possible prosecution of the teens.
One of the teen dealers identified Villanueva by his username, Hoodhxavi2, on a popular social media application, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Police found a social media post by the suspect in which he mocked a Carrollton officer who issued him a warning for a traffic violation, saying “go hire some new cops.”
Investigators got a warrant for Villanueva’s social media account and found messages between a 16-year-old dealer and Villanueva in which the teen inquired about buying 40 pills for $130, the complaint says.
Police also found photos of drugs, including M30 pills, as well as money and guns on Villanueva’s social media account, according to the complaint.
A 14-year-old girl suspected of overdosing on fentanyl in mid-January told police she snorted an M30 pill that she bought from a juvenile dealer, the complaint said. Villanueva was the source of fentanyl pills for that dealer, according to the DEA. The teen had messaged Villanueva, asking to buy 500 pills for $1,000, the complaint said.
That same teen dealer also supplied a 15-year-old girl suspected of overdosing on fentanyl, authorities said. The girl required a ventilator at the hospital but survived.
After his arrest in the case, Navarrete said he acquired M30 pills from a teen who got them from Villanueva, the complaint said.
When news of the Carrollton school overdoses and related arrests became public in early February, after a report by The Dallas Morning News, Villanueva posted an “obvious response” on social media that said, “Only thing that’s gonna stop us is feds,” the complaint said.
“Villanueva is the source of supply to all eight juvenile dealers ... whether directly or indirectly using the juvenile dealer network and adult dealers,” the complaint said. “Villanueva is actively distributing bulk amounts of deadly fentanyl pills to juveniles and adults.”
Fentanyl, a highly potent and addictive synthetic opiate, is often mixed with acetaminophen and other substances then pressed into pills. When prescribed by doctors and taken responsibly, fentanyl can be helpful, medical professionals say. But even a small amount — the size of the tip of a sharpened pencil — can be lethal.
Simonton said the drug is “killing our kids.”
“To deal fentanyl is to knowingly imperil lives,” she said. “To deal fentanyl to minors is to shatter futures. That is despicable.”
Simonton said the local victims who survived their overdoses experienced temporary paralysis, intubation and “other medical trauma that will remain with them for a long time.”
She added: “We need to address the demand side too.” Simonton urged parents, teachers, coaches, counselors, school administrators and others in the community to educate children about the dangers.
And she asked parents to monitor their children’s social media accounts, noting that drug traffickers are increasingly using apps like Snapchat and Instagram to advertise the pills to minors, often with coded language.
“Please have frank conversations with your kids,” she said.
Chávez said more than 107,600 Americans died last year from taking drugs, with synthetic opioids like fentanyl accounting for 70% of those deaths.
“This isn’t just a Carrollton problem,” he said. “Fentanyl does not discriminate.”
According to a recent analysis by Families Against Fentanyl, fentanyl deaths are rising faster among children 14 and under than among any other age group in the country. Fentanyl was involved in over 77% of adolescent drug overdose deaths in 2021, according to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Kevin Krause. Kevin has worked for The Dallas Morning News since 2003. He covers federal criminal courts and has been a journalist for 30 years. Kevin is a multiple recipient of the Stephen Philbin Award for excellence in legal reporting. Kevin earned a BA from Boston University.
Fiber optic splice closure price Zaeem Shaikh, Staff, Reporter. Zaeem Shaikh is a reporter covering breaking news for The Dallas Morning News. He grew up in Fresno, California, and graduated from Fresno State University in 2022. Before joining The News, he has reported for The Sacramento Bee, CalMatters and the Oregonian.