A recent bust at a Washington hotel by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Drug Unit took more than 60 doses of heroin off the street.

Last Friday, investigators with the drug unit charged Mandrill Robinson, 43, of East Third Street in Washington, with two counts with possession with intent to sell and deliver heroin, trafficking in heroin and possession of drug paraphernalia.

BCSO Drug Unit Lt. Russell Davenport says the sheriff’s office had been following Robinson’s alleged activities for a few months, making a number of controlled buys of heroin prior to the arrest.

“We knew that he was selling heroin and was getting his heroin from New Jersey,” Davenport said. “We found out that he was back in town, living at the Magnuson Hotel, room 229. … He’s been back and forth for years to New Jersey and living here in Beaufort County.”

Upon executing a search warrant on Robinson’s room at the Magnuson Hotel, deputies found 67 individual packages of heroin, each inside a wax paper bag marked “bad blood.”

Davenport estimates that each bag would sell for anywhere between $10 and $20 on the street. Beyond the money, the bust also means preventing drugs from reaching 67 people who could be negatively impacted.

“The majority of the heroin we’re getting now is coming back from the lab having a percentage of fentanyl laced with it,” Davenport said.

As for hotels being a site for drug trafficking, it’s something law enforcement sees on a regular basis.

“It’s a common trend,” Davenport said. “A lot of people involved in the distribution of controlled substances use hotel rooms in an effort to kind of detour us from their residence and try to hide their identity. They could rent a room for one night and then move to a hotel for another night.”

Robinson was held in the Beaufort County Detention Center under a $100,000 secured bond.