Donald Eric McRoy, Heroin Trafficking, MS 2024

Donald Eric McRoy, 53, of Biloxi, is headed to federal prison for 278 months after being sentenced in a high-volume heroin trafficking operation that stretched from Mississippi to Atlanta. The sentence, handed down today by U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden in Gulfport, Miss., marks a major blow to a drug network that saturated the Gulf Coast with lethal doses of the opioid.

McRoy was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin, a charge stemming from four controlled buys in 2016 where he sold the drug directly — or through intermediaries — to an undercover operative. Each transaction added to the evidence that McRoy wasn’t just a street-level dealer, but a central figure in a regional supply chain.

Investigators with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New Orleans uncovered that McRoy sourced bulk heroin from a supplier based in Atlanta, Georgia. That connection, once traced, unraveled a two-tiered network: McRoy’s supplier and the supplier above him have both since been convicted, dismantling a pipeline that threatened communities across south Mississippi.

U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst emphasized the ripple effect of the takedown. “This wasn’t just about one man on a street corner,” Hurst said. “McRoy’s operation fed addiction, fueled violence, and endangered entire neighborhoods. Today’s sentence sends a message: we’re cutting off supply at every level.”

The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and aggressively prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Meynardie. Authorities say the disruption of this heroin ring likely prevented hundreds, if not thousands, of doses from hitting the streets — and possibly saved lives in the process.

McRoy will serve 278 months in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release. His conviction underscores the federal government’s ongoing crackdown on opioid trafficking in the Deep South, where heroin and fentanyl continue to devastate vulnerable populations.