Large heroin bust made in Hernando County

BROOKSVILLE (FOX 13) - Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi held a joint news conference Friday to announce the largest ever heroin bust in the county.

On display were some of the evidence collected by detectives: three piles of wax paper that had contained heroin and each little package was stamped with the names of either President Donald Trump or notorious drug lords Pablo Escobar and El Chapo.

Bondi was not amused.

"All I want to this drug dealer: big mistake by putting the President's picture on this. Big mistake," she said.

Sheriff Nienhuis said detectives began investigating Kelvin Johnson, 46, after the U.S. Postal Service intercepted a package headed his way that detectives said was filled with hundreds of heroin doses.

The sheriff said, during the course of several months, investigators determined Johnson was selling the drugs in the Spring Hill area. Deputies arrested him Friday during a traffic stop. Detectives said they eventually tracked down another package headed to Johnson that was filled with children's toys and 5,000 doses of heroin bringing the total number of doses seized to more than 5,500.

"This individual is definitely somebody that we don't want selling poison to our brothers and our sisters and our sons and our daughters," Nienhuis said. "It is extremely powerful and because it's so powerful it is very, very, very easy for people to overdose."

Bondi added heroin has become even scarier because it's so potent in such small doses and is often laced with other deadly drugs.

"They're making it more mainstream, just like the synthetic drugs," she said. "That's what's so frightening, it should be, to all of us in this state and country is the way they're packaging it, the way they're selling it, the number of lives that can be lost. And I want to commend the Sheriff's Office today for saving so many lives today."

Nienhuis said Johnson could spend at least 25 years in prison. He already had long criminal history that included 12 prior felony convictions, according to the sheriff.