A 43-year-old man admitted he shipped more than 220 pounds of cocaine from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia and New Jersey over a span of more than a year using the United States Postal Service’s overnight mail service.
Iran Soler, of Philadelphia, faces at least 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey said in a statement. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 6, 2023.
Soler regularly took commercial flights from Philadelphia to San Juan, Puerto Rico, from March 2019 to August 2020 to pick up cocaine, officials said. While in Puerto Rico, he’d go to post offices and mail three-pound packages overnight to a home in Egg Harbor Township and multiple residences in Philadelphia, according to court papers.
His partners would then pick up the cocaine to re-sell to other drug dealers in the Philadelphia area.
Investigators learned of the shipments, eventually doing surveillance on the home and executing search warrants.
The home in Egg Harbor Township is owned by one of Soler’s alleged co-conspirators — Lester Santana. Charges against Santana are pending.
Soler made at least 18 round-trips between Philadelphia and Puerto Rico between Oct. 1, 2019 and Aug 14, 2020, court papers show. On 17 of those 18 occasions, cocaine arrived at the homes in Egg Harbor Township and Philadelphia within two days of his arrival in Puerto Rico.
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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com.
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