An Aspen man is being held on suspicion of dealing heroin, federal authorities announced yesterday. The alleged dealer, Ryan Welgos, 30, was arrested June 19 in Silverthorne, authorities said, after buying 15 grams of the narcotic from alleged supplier Nelson Raul-Gamez, 24, of Aurora. They seized 25 grams in total from the men.
The bust culminated a three-month sting operation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Two Rivers Drug Enforcement Team (TRIDENT). It was sparked by the March heroin overdose and death of Aspen resident Adam Peterson, who authorities say was killed by drugs Welgos sold him.
Using an undercover agent, investigators tracked an operation moving heroin from Denver into mountain resort areas.
“(Welgos) was the principal source, bringing the dope to buyers in the Aspen area,” said DEA special agent Jeffrey Sweetin, who ran the investigation and oversees DEA operations in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.
He reported that Welgos would travel to the Front Range to pick up drugs from Raul-Gamez and bring them back to Aspen. Sometimes, Sweetin said, Raul-Gamez would travel to Aspen to make a drug drop, although those bags were more expensive due to a gas surcharge.
Both men are charged with distribution of heroin, conspiracy to distribute heroin, possession of heroin, and possession with the intent to distribute.
Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario, who is also chairman of TRIDENT, said in a prepared statement that he hopes the men will be given “the maximum sentences allowable” if convicted of the crimes. Combined, the four felony charges carry a maximum potential penalty of 30 years in prison.
Welgos has no previous drug convictions in Colorado. He was, however, arrested on July 4, 2001, for running naked up Galena Street. He comes from a longtime Aspen family. His father is the manager of Clark’s Market and his brother, Mark, is a locally based professional skier.
Enforcement issues
While the target of the investigation was an alleged Aspen drug dealer, and the bust spotlights a little-known aspect of Aspen’s prevalent recreational drug culture, the undercover agents were not primarily operating within the city or in Pitkin County.
“Most of the undercover activity took place outside of Aspen,” said Sweetin, who issued a strongly worded statement about drug enforcement in Aspen along with yesterday’s announcement.
“For years, a small but vocal group of Aspen residents have argued that drug enforcement — and particularly DEA — is not welcome in their city,” he wrote. “Time after time they have said there is no drug problem there. But, as this tragedy demonstrates, drug distribution and abuse are present in Aspen. And as long as they are, DEA and our willing partners will continue to investigate and prosecute drug traffickers wherever they operate — including Aspen, Colorado.”
Sweetin expressed similar concerns in 2006, when he addressed Aspen City Council regarding the public outcry from Aspenites about a daytime DEA raid on cocaine dealing in two city restaurants. Some citizens objected that those armed raids endangered public safety, and were upset that the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office was not informed of the raids, even though the Aspen Police Department was.
Neither department was officially notified of the three-month undercover investigation that led to the Welgos arrest. Sweetin said he kept local authorities in the dark in part to protect them from the ire of Aspen’s citizenry.
“We didn’t tell them so that they don’t catch grief from their customers. Why would I put them in that position?” Sweetin said yesterday. “I’ve been in this business for 26 years, and Aspen is the only place that has ever asked me for less police presence.”
The Aspen police and sheriff’s departments do not conduct undercover actions themselves, as a matter of policy for both agencies and under a mandate from Aspen City Council.
“In the quiver of arrows dedicated to interdiction of illicit commerce in the chemical arena, undercover operations are the most effective,” said Sheriff Bob Braudis. But, he added, local authorities choose not to participate in them because of their high danger factor, high cost and corrosive effect on the public’s trust in law enforcement.
Braudis said he would not expect to be informed of an undercover DEA operation unless the agency needed backup or support from his officers, which he said he would provide on request with uniformed deputies.
“Generally, the DEA will inform us when they are operating in town,” said Aspen police Sgt. Chip Seamans. “But they don’t have to.”
On the radar
The heroin death that spawned the DEA/TRIDENT sting was the first such overdose in recent local memory. And the fact that it was a heroin overdose was not publicized until yesterday.
The DEA’s announcement states that the investigation was launched because of “several heroin overdoses in Aspen.” However, agent Sweetin clarified yesterday afternoon that there were exactly two in the Roaring Fork Valley of which he is aware: Peterson’s in Aspen and a non-fatal one in Glenwood Springs.
Heroin’s being sold and used in Aspen did not surprise local authorities. They said Aspenites have been known to use heroin by smoking it, snorting it, and injecting it, sometimes mixing it with cocaine to make a “speedball,” the concoction believed to have killed Adam Peterson.
Braudis said that some amount of heroin has long been present in Aspen, but “It’s certainly been a low-level phenomenon,...it’s way down on the pyramid of chemicals utilized here.”
Braudis speculated that the drug’s use is not as well known here because the petty property crime normally associated with drug addicts is not a problem in Aspen. In big cities, poor heroin addicts often rob and steal in order to afford the drug, while Aspen junkies can simply buy it.
“There’s a terrible drug issue in Pitkin County and in Aspen,” Sgt. Seamans added. “We do deal with youngsters with heroin issues, and we have been on the side of education as well as enforcement.”
They agreed that its identity as a resort, a wealthy retirement community and a relatively crime-free small town does not inoculate Aspen from seemingly foreign hard drugs such as heroin.
“When there is a community with a drug appetite like Aspen, Colorado, you’re going to find some heroin,” Sweetin said. “Is there a demand in Aspen, Colorado, for opiates? Of course there is.”
andrew@aspendailynews.com