LAFAYETTE, IN — Four local men are in the Tippecanoe County Jail on $1 million cash bonds, each facing 12 counts related to drug dealing in a monthslong investigation that included local police and U.S. Postal Service investigators.
The probable cause affidavit for 25-year-old Cole Henderson, taken into custody last week and joining three other alleged conspirators in jail, offers an inside look at the drug trade and the dirty tasks sometimes involved in police investigations. This one includes surveillance and combing through trash containers of at least a dozen addresses in Lafayette and West Lafayette.
The three other men are 30-year-old Elias Zamot, 28-year-old Romeo Sanders, and 26-year-old Adolfo Olivera. They were taken into custody in February, jail and court records show.
The investigation began when the Tippecanoe County Drug Task Force received information about Sanders being involved in transporting drugs in the county. Officers learned that officers with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service were also conducting a drug-dealing investigation where a large quantity of packages containing suspected drugs were being shipped to Sanders at multiple locations.
Drug task force detectives began on Oct. 1, 2025, by helping the USPIS with surveillance at various locations, conducting a “trash pull” at two addresses on Bridgewater Court in Lafayette and surveillance at a residence on Isaiah Street in West Lafayette, which was an address provided by the USPIS, the court document says. What follows is a list of similar actions at other addresses, with detectives following suspects as they moved to other places, including in a liquor store parking lot on Veterans Memorial Parkway.
Boxes and bags
Officers watched their suspects receiving and unloading various boxes into buildings and cars and dropping trash bags into dumpsters.
Here is a typical description of what they wrote that they found in October:
“Officers located eight cardboard boxes with shipping labels. Inside the majority of the boxes, officers located smaller boxes which were spaced apart with spray foam, and inside those boxes were retail boxes of Mainstay air fryers (a Walmart brand),” said the affidavit, which does not explain how the air fryers are used. “Inside some of the air fryer boxes, officers located broken pieces of air fryers, spray foam, and empty heat-sealed bags.”
“Officers field-tested two vacuum-sealed bags which had small white/clear residue. Each of the bags field-tested positive as fentanyl. Officers field-tested a clear/white residue located in a Ziploc bag which also tested positive as fentanyl,” the affidavit said.
Residue in other bags and boxes allegedly tested positive for cocaine and THC (marijuana).
On Nov. 7, 2025, officers went to Crosspoint Court South in Lafayette for a trash pull from a bin in front of the residence on trash pickup day, the document said. Detectives collected the one bag from the bin, which contained vacuum-sealed plastic bags with various types of residue.
“Multiple large vacuum-sealed bags had handwritten strain labels including ‘Black Cherry Punch’ and’CP.’ Many used vacuum-sealed bags had been folded, nested inside larger bags, and resealed, which is a technique commonly used to suppress narcotics odor or contain chemical residue,” the affidavit said. “Officers also located two Ziploc baggies which contained orange-tinted powder residue and field-tested positive as amphetamines. Officers observed a sandwich baggie containing a loose white powder residue and the letter ‘C’ handwritten on the baggie in permanent marker. Affiant is awarethe white powder residue in the baggie with the letter ‘C’ field-tested positive as cocaine. Officers also observed a blue latex glove and one unfired green tip armor-piercing cartridge. Officers also observed several receipts showing a single customer name ‘Ralphy P.’ Affiant is aware Adolfo Olivera goes by the nickname ‘Ralphy.'”
On the afternoon of Nov. 21, 2025, officers were dispatched to the area of Waverly Drive in Lafayette about a suspicious incident. Two street department workers discovered a firearm and two cell phones lying in the road in front of a house. Officers found what appeared to be a bullet impact in the grass next to the road, the court document said. The firearm was reported stolen out of Indianapolis; it was a black F/N (Fabrique Nationale) 509 9mm-caliber handgun.
Evidence on social media?
Lafayette police officers watched a social media account associated with Adolfo Olivera, where Olivera allegedly posted an image on Nov. 18, 2025, which shows Olivera holding a handgun in his hand that appears to be a black F/N 509 handgun. Olivera was living about 243 feet away from where the firearm was found.
Officers found three boxes in trash bins marked as containing 10 “Sunday Bars,” chocolate bars containing psilocybin mushrooms. They also reportedly found two empty sandwich baggies and several vinyl graphics for “EZ Outdoor Lighting” service, a company owned and operated by Zamot.
On Feb. 9, 2026, officers watched a man identified as Olivera retrieve a package delivered to a residence on Crosspoint Court South in Lafayette and later post a photograph of the package to his social media account.
Later on Feb. 9, officers saw Sanders and Olivera drive to Bridgewater Court in Lafayette and place several items in a dumpster. Detectives retrieved two boxes, in which they found two air fryers, spray foam and vacuum-sealed bags, “consistent with items used for packaging and transporting drugs during this investigation.”
As part of the probe, officers reportedly found about 1.85 pounds of pills that field-tested positive as methamphetamine; about 5.16 pounds of pills that also field-tested positive for methamphetamine; and about 4.86 pounds of pills that tested positive for fentanyl.
On Feb. 13, officers with TCDTF and USPSI seized a package scheduled to be delivered to Henderson’s residence, in which they found 398 grams of cocaine. About March 27, officers seized another package with about 1.4 pounds of cocaine.
Officers reviewed social media and telephone records, which show Henderson, Sanders and Oliveratogether the night of Feb. 9 and into the early morning of Feb. 10, the affidavit said.
“Officers also observed multiple videos which were created on September 9, 2025, and depict Olivera and Henderson … tossing large amounts of packaged cocaine back and forth to each other. In the videos, Henderson is observed placing the packaged cocaine inside of his mouth,” the court record said. “Further, there is a video of Henderson ingesting cocaine off of the countertop at the residence on Crosspoint Court South.”
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: ‘Air fryer’ packages hid fentanyl, cocaine in drug bust, police say
Reporting by Virginia Black, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
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