Port St. Lucie police arrested Danilo Jaramillo, 43, on fentanyl-trafficking, firearm and paraphernalia charges after investigators connected him to a suspected overdose death, according to an account by CBS12. The arrest followed a search of Jaramillo’s vehicle and home that investigators say produced fentanyl, cash, firearms, ammunition, digital scales, a ledger, cocaine and marijuana.
The case began after officers found Miqueias Oliveira Silva, 34, dead at an apartment on SE Collins Lane last Sunday. An affidavit cited by CBS12 estimated that Silva had been dead for about 24 hours. Police reported finding a bloody syringe and a bag of cocaine nearby, but the account does not establish the precise cause of death or definitively prove which substance caused it.
Investigators say they reviewed months of text messages between Silva and a contact saved as Danilo Jaramillo. They then used Silva’s phone to ask whether Jaramillo was available, arranged a meeting and stopped him while he was traveling, according to the affidavit cited by CBS12. Police say fentanyl and cash were found in the vehicle. A subsequent home search produced three firearms, ammunition and additional drugs and cash.
Jaramillo, whom the report describes as a convicted felon, requested a lawyer before answering further questions. He was booked into the St. Lucie County jail. The reported charges are allegations, and the available account does not say whether prosecutors will bring a separate homicide charge tied to Silva’s death. A Florida Supreme Court filing in a different case described the state’s drug-distribution homicide provision as requiring a distinct causation analysis beyond ordinary trafficking allegations, according to the court’s discussion in Aumuller v. State.
The arrest comes amid a mixed fentanyl picture
Florida’s overall overdose statistics have moved downward even as individual fentanyl investigations remain severe. Florida Department of Health data show that total drug-related deaths fell 14% and opioid-related deaths fell 26% in 2024 compared with 2023, a statewide trend that does not determine what happened to Silva or establish Jaramillo’s criminal liability, according to the Florida Department of Health.
Fentanyl also remains a substantial part of federal trafficking enforcement. The United States Sentencing Commission reported that 22% of federal drug-trafficking cases in fiscal year 2025 involved fentanyl, up 135% from fiscal year 2021, according to the commission. Those figures describe federal cases nationally, not the frequency or outcome of arrests in Port St. Lucie.
A separate National Institute of Justice-supported study in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, illustrates how overdose investigations can combine public-health and criminal-justice information. The study found that coordinated alerts linking medical examiners, law enforcement and prosecutors can help investigators identify drug suppliers connected to overdose deaths, according to the National Institute of Justice. It does not show that Florida agencies use the same system or that such a process was used in Silva’s case.
Port St. Lucie has also seen a separate completed federal fentanyl case. Juneem Jermain Barnes received a 15-year federal sentence after pleading guilty to fentanyl-trafficking and firearm charges, according to CBS12. That outcome is not a forecast for Jaramillo: Barnes’s case involved a guilty plea and sentencing, while Jaramillo’s state charges remain pending and the circumstances surrounding Silva’s death remain unresolved.
