Police display confiscated drugs
RIVERSIDE – A man living with students at UCR was arrested after receiving a package of 1,015 purple Ecstasy tablets, concealed in an innocuous looking box of 1,000 candy colored puzzle pieces.
Alerted by federal officials, Riverside police tracked a special delivery package from the Netherlands believed to hold drugs. The man who received the drugs Wednesday, February 24, at an apartment near UCR was arrested.
Police collected drugs with an estimated value of $23,250, according to Sgt. Andrew Misenheimer. Further investigation by detectives acting on a search warrant netted an additional 125 Ecstasy pills and 90 Xanax pills in the apartment.
Sung Hee Jeong, 21, was arrested on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance for sale and taken to the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility, where jail records say he remained Thursday.
According to the Press Enterprise the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, which inspects international mail, discovered the drugs and handed the package off to Homeland Security investigators in Riverside, who partnered with the Riverside Police Department.
Officers watched as the box was delivered to the 3000 block of Iowa Avenue and Jeong received it, talking inside his apartment.
The apartment building is located near the University of California, Riverside in a complex. Jeong isn’t a UCR student, and the apartment isn’t in a UCR housing complex, but the building is set up like a dorm with common areas and separate rooms.
Misenheimer stated that Jeong lives at the Iowa Avenue apartment but is from Tujunga. While authorities cannot be certain that Jeong was going to sell the tablets to UCR students, they speculate that this is likely.
A 2014 survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that more 18- to 25-year-olds partake of the drug Ecstasy (also called MDMA) than any other age group.
