On July 21, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Texas announced two new arrests made in connection with the Carrollton juvenile fentanyl case linked to 14 overdoses, of which four were fatal.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s statement, a search of the residence of Julio Gonzales, Jr., 18 and Adrian Martinez-Leon, 19 conducted by the DEA reportedly found thousands of fentanyl-laced pills stuffed in a microwave alongside a partial kilogram of cocaine, money hidden in a closet and numerous firearms found throughout the house.
The connection with the Carrollton case was made by a 16-year-old dealer who delivered the fentanyl pills that resulted in the death of a 14-year-old girl. According to the statement, the teenager identified Gonzales as his supplier, known as “J-Money.” Officials also found that the child discussed “J-Money” with Eduardo Navarrete through text messages, one of the first people arrested in connection with the case. In the text conversation, Navarrete and the 16-year-old identified “J-Money” as their “plug.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office reported that four other defendants in the case allegedly identified “J-Money” as their source supply and three of them even identified Gonzales’ photograph. One of the defendants also linked Gonzales as the source of a DEA-controlled purchase operation that dealt with thousands of pills, a claim that was corroborated later by an exchange through Instagram, where Gonzales and the defendant negotiated the pills' quantities and price.
During the investigation in June 2023 — which was conducted in cooperation with the DEA Dallas, the Dallas Police Department’s SWAT team and the Carrollton Police Department, —officials allegedly observed both Gonzales and Martinez-Leon, on different occasions, conducting hand-to-hand drug transactions.
Gonzales’ and Martinez-Leon’s arrest mark the ninth and tenth people charged in connection to the Carrollton overdoses case. Five of them pleaded guilty.
