2 CHARGED IN CAMDEN HEROIN DEAL

CAMDEN -- Federal drug enforcement agents have charged two New York
men with attempting to smuggle $500,000 worth of heroin to three drug
rings operating in Camden. The suspects, Paul Rivera, 39, of the 1500
block of Fulton Avenue in the Bronx, and Jorge L. Agudelo, 36, of
Elmhurst, were arrested late last week on drug distribution charges.

Rivera posted $500,000 bail and was released yesterday after a brief
hearing in U.S. District Court in Camden. Agudelo was denied bail. The
arrests capped a five-week investigation of the two men, Detective
Fred Davis of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said yesterday.

He said federal agents received information from a confidential source
that Rivera and Agudelo would be delivering between 300 and 500 grams
of heroin to a home in Camden last Thursday. That morning, DEA agents
set up surveillance at Exit 4 of the New Jersey Turnpike. Soon after,
Davis said, they spotted a white Chevrolet Cavalier driven by Rivera
and, behind it, a car driven by Agudelo. The federal agents said they
followed Rivera and Agudelo to a residence in East Camden, where,
according to the agents, the two men attempted to deliver a package
containing the heroin.

The agents arrested them and said they seized about half a kilogram of
the tan, powdered substance. "This is the first heroin seizure in at
least three years where we netted that much in one shot," Davis said
in an interview yesterday. "They had it in dime-shaped tablets -- a
whole lot of them. They hid it in hydraulic traps on the floor of the
car." Davis said the occupants of the home were not arrested.

He said Rivera and Agudelo had been smuggling drugs into Camden for at
least three years, but would not give details on the three drug rings
they allegedly dealt with.