x
Breaking News
More () »

Heroin mixer and stash house operator busted during Operation Cookout pleads guilty

Court documents said a 38-year-old woman mixed, prepared, and stored heroin and fentanyl in her home. She was arrested with 38 others in Operation Cookout bust.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A Hampton woman pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin and 40 grams or more of fentanyl.

Court documents said 38-year-old Symphoni V. Wiggins mixed, prepared, and stored heroin and fentanyl in her home for a kilogram-weight drug distributor on the Peninsula from at least May until December 2018. She was charged by indictment along with 38 other defendants as part of Operation Cookout.

The 106-count indictments against the 39 defendants alleged various offenses, including conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, heroin, cocaine base, and fentanyl; conspiracy to launder money; felon in possession of a firearm; maintaining drug-involved premises; use of a communication facility in furtherance of drug trafficking; interstate travel in aid of racketeering enterprises; and illegal re-entry by a previously deported or removed alien. 

RELATED: Department of Justice: Massive heroin, fentanyl bust in VA, NC; 35 arrested in 3 days

Credit: Western Tidewater Regional Jail
Symphoni Wiggins is one of more than 30 people arrested in Operation Cookout. Operation Cookout was a massive drug bust in Hampton Roads.

Co-conspirators would pick up heroin and fentanyl at Wiggins’s house. Then they'd take the heroin and fentanyl and deal it to customers on the street, including other drug dealers. When she was communicating with another co-conspirator, Wiggins boasted that she was “the master mixer,” court documents said.

As part of her plea agreement, Wiggins also has agreed to a $159,000 forfeiture judgment.

The case was investigated as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces' Operation Cookout. The OCDETF program is a federal multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations.

The main mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, and money laundering organizations, and those primarily responsible for the nation’s illegal drug supply.

RELATED: 409 marijuana plants seized from Virginia drug bust worth more than $1 million

Before You Leave, Check This Out