![Heroin overdose. [Shutterstock - SanchaiRat - 479165098]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/shutterstock_479165098-e1473445373969.jpg "Heroin overdose. [Shutterstock - SanchaiRat - 479165098]")
A man from Haiti living in the U.S. illegally is “likely to be deported” after authorities in Florida busted him for possessing and selling heroin multiple times.
Officers with the Martin County Sheriff’s Officer arrested 25-year-old Chrismanuel Theophile in Port St. Lucie, Fla, Wednesday, charging him with 13 heroin-related charges. Theophile, who is from Haiti, is accused of selling the narcotic on at least four separate occasions between March 27 and May 2 to informants working with local law enforcement, reports the TC Palm.
Officials say that on each occasion Theophile sold between $80 and $200 worth of heroin to their informants. Theophile, who would travel between Port St. Lucie and Broward County to make deals, was arrested Wednesday after he sold another $200 worth of heroin to an undercover informant.
Officials set Theophile’s bail at $430,000 and said he was placed on an immigration hold for deportation to Haiti.
Drug overdoses, fueled by heroin and synthetic opioids, are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The increase is driven primarily by opioids, which claimed 42,249 lives in 2016 — a 28 percent increase over the roughly 33,000 lives lost to opioids in 2015. Opioid overdose made up a staggering 66 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2016, surpassing the annual number of lives lost to breast cancer.
The epidemic is contributing to declining life expectancy in the U.S., officials say. Life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2016 for the first time since an outbreak of influenza in 1962 and 1963.
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