TAMPA, Fla. — A 50-year-old man who stepped off a cruise ship at Port Tampa Bay this spring now faces an oxycodone trafficking charge, months after the pills in his bags went to a lab and came back as controlled painkillers and sedatives, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said this week.
Brandan Swan was arrested Oct. 10 in Orange County on a warrant issued two days earlier. He remains there awaiting extradition to Hillsborough County, where he faces a count of trafficking in oxycodone in the 100-gram to 30-kilogram range and a count of possessing a Schedule IV drug with intent to sell or deliver.
It all began March 19, when Swan came back to Tampa from Cozumel, Mexico. Crew members flagged him as heavily intoxicated and called for medical help as he left the ship. After he was treated, he was stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and he acknowledged swallowing pills.
Before anyone opened his luggage, Swan filled out a declaration reporting nearly $27,000 in cash along with 545 pills he did not identify. Federal agents seized the pills in April and shipped them off for testing. When the results arrived in August, they identified oxycodone and alprazolam, the sedative sold under the Xanax name, and detectives found Swan had no valid prescription for either one.
The arrest came out of a joint investigation by the sheriff’s Opioid Overdose Investigations Section and the HSI Maritime Task Force. Sheriff Chad Chronister said the partnership is meant to stop traffickers from treating the county’s port as a gateway for dangerous drugs.
Swan has not yet appeared in a Hillsborough courtroom on the charges. The sheriff’s public affairs office said it will release more details as the prosecution proceeds.
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Filed under: Tampa FL Crime News
