Press Release  Lawrence Couple Indicted on Fentanyl Trafficking Charges

Salem — Months after the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office won a $3 million federal grant to support its Fentanyl Strike Force, two Lawrence residents have been indicted as the result of a joint federal and state investigation into a fentanyl trafficking operation, Attorney General Maura Healey announced today.

Julio Rivera, 36, was indicted by an Essex Superior Court Grand Jury on charges of Trafficking Over 10 Grams of Fentanyl (six counts), Possession with Intent to Distribute Cocaine (one count), and Conspiracy to Violate the Controlled Substance Act (one count).

Arianna Camilo Disla, 32, was indicted on charges Trafficking Over 10 Grams of Fentanyl (two counts), Possession with Intent to Distribute Cocaine (one count), and Conspiracy to Violate the Controlled Substance Act (one count).

The AG’s Office announced Disla and Rivera’s arrests in December 2018. Disla was arrested December 6 and charged with trafficking after a search warrant was executed at the residence she shared with Rivera in Lawrence. Rivera was arrested December 11 after allegedly making several sales of fentanyl to an undercover police officer and fleeing law enforcement.

The defendants will be arraigned in Essex Superior Court at a later date.

These charges are the result of an investigation involving the AG’s Enterprise, Major and Cyber Crime Division, Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Commonwealth Interstate Narcotics Reduction Enforcement Team (CINRET) and the AG’s Office, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

This investigation is ongoing. These charges are allegations and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.    

The AG’s Office has been working closely with its federal, state and local partners to combat illegal drug trafficking. AG Healey formed a Fentanyl Strike Force to more aggressively combat the heroin and prescription drug abuse crisis in New England. In October 2018, the AG’s Office announced the Fentanyl Strike Force had been awarded a nearly $3 million grant to expand its efforts to combat the opioid epidemic and disrupt drug and fentanyl trafficking throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The AG’s Office won this grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services Anti-Heroin Task Force grant program and was one of just 17 proposals funded nationally and the only one awarded in New England.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant Attorneys General Megan McLaughlin and Gina Masotta of the AG’s Enterprise, Major and Cyber Crimes Division. The case is being investigated by the AG’s Enterprise, Major and Cyber Crime Division, Massachusetts State Police assigned to the CINRET and the AG’s Office, and the DEA.

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