A Scranton father and son are being held at Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bail each after investigators say they were caught with more than 1,000 grams of cocaine that had been mailed from Puerto Rico. Carlos Esteban Lantigua, 48, and Ian Carlo Esteban Rosa, 21, are charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance following a parcel-tracking investigation that stretched from a porch in Old Forge to a traffic stop in Taylor.
According to the Scranton Times-Tribune, Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General narcotics agents had been investigating a group shipping narcotics parcels through the U.S. Postal Service, and agents seized five parcels destined for Scranton and surrounding Lackawanna County areas that each tested positive for cocaine. Investigators said the suspicious packages were all being shipped from source drug cities in Puerto Rico, a detail they confirmed during the week of Oct. 19 after tracking the parcels to IP addresses originating in the same area as previously seized shipments.
Surveillance Leads to Old Forge Porch
The case accelerated on Friday, Oct. 23, when a state attorney general's office agent spotted a parcel originating from Puerto Rico that was scheduled for delivery to 202 Moosic Road in Old Forge. Law enforcement officials set up surveillance near that address and near the Taylor Borough post office at 910 S. Main St., and watched as a mail carrier delivered the parcel to the porch.
A Hispanic man then retrieved the parcel from the porch at 202 Moosic Road and carried it inside 204 Moosic Road, according to the criminal complaint cited by the paper. That same man later handed the parcel to two men waiting in a truck, who placed it in the vehicle's cargo bin, the complaint states.
Traffic Stop Uncovers the Cargo
State police stopped a gray Toyota Tacoma, registered to Mira Del Carmen Genao Perez of West Locust Street in Scranton, at 600 N. Main St. in Taylor. Police identified the driver as Esteban Lantigua and the passenger as Esteban Rosa, who then retrieved an orange cargo container from the vehicle cab. A police dog identified the presence of drugs in the Tacoma from outside the vehicle.
A search turned up one kilogram of suspected cocaine from inside the parcel, along with a shipping label, a GPS tracking device and an iPhone with a red case, the complaint says. The brick of suspected cocaine was stamped with the number 707, authorities said. Several parcels tied to the broader investigation were addressed to 618 Maple St., Apt. 2 in Scranton, the same apartment where the two men reportedly resided.
Shifting Accounts and a Matching Brick
Esteban Rosa told police he had moved from Puerto Rico to Scranton about two weeks earlier and moved in with his father, and he admitted to being near Moosic Road on Friday with his father in a truck owned by his father's friend. He said he did not know the man who put the parcel in the truck or what it contained, according to police.
Esteban Lantigua initially told authorities he had been in the United States for about a year after previously living in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and said he was in Moosic looking for independent-contractor work and had gotten lost. He later changed his account, saying an unknown male had called Friday morning about plumbing work at his residence and gave him and his son a package upon arrival without telling them what to do with it, authorities said. Investigators said Esteban Lantigua knew the parcel was not addressed to him or his address, despite never seeing a picture of it or receiving information about its contents.
Separately, Puerto Rico officials obtained a federal search warrant and discovered another parcel addressed to the Maple Street apartment, sent to a name listed as Rico Rodriguez and shipped from San Juan. That parcel contained a one-kilogram brick of suspected cocaine also stamped 707, which officials said resembled the brick recovered from the Tacoma. Puerto Rico officials reported that brick tested positive for cocaine and weighed 1,030 grams.
What Comes Next
Both men were remanded to Lackawanna County Prison on the $100,000 bail, and a preliminary hearing for both is scheduled for Nov. 5 at 9:15 a.m. Under Pennsylvania's Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act, a controlled substance covers any drug, substance or immediate precursor listed in Schedules I through V, while delivery is defined as the actual, constructive or attempted transfer of such a substance from one person to another.
The Scranton case arrives as federal prosecutors elsewhere in the state pursue similarly large cocaine cases; in Western Pennsylvania, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania secured an eight-count indictment alleging cocaine distribution between June 2025 and September 2026. No broader statewide trend tying the two cases together has been established, and much about the Scranton investigation, including whether the men have entered pleas, remains unresolved ahead of next month's hearing.
