(New York) A New York daycare manager and her alleged accomplice are being prosecuted for drug trafficking leading to the poisoning of four young children, one of whom died, fentanyl being stored in the establishment, announced Tuesday the US Department of Justice.
Grei Mendez, 36, manager of the Divino Niño daycare, (“divine child” in Spanish), in the Bronx neighborhood, and Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, who resided in the establishment, were arrested on Saturday, said the ministry in a press release.
The day before, emergency services had intervened in the daycare following a call from Grei Mendez and found four children under the age of three poisoned, one of whom, aged one, died, according to the same source.
The two defendants, as well as other people, had been involved in fentanyl trafficking since at least July, including in the nursery where “they stored large quantities”.
“Instead of caring for the well-being of these children, Grei Mendez and his accomplices put them in immediate danger, trafficking drugs and storing deadly fentanyl in the very space where the children ate, slept and played. », indignant the federal prosecutor of the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, quoted in the press release.
Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has flooded the drug market in the United States in recent years, is the main cause of the approximately 110,000 overdoses recorded in the country in 2022.