A nurse trusted with one of the hospital’s most tightly controlled drugs is now facing federal charges after investigators say she spent months turning fentanyl into water. A federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico indicted Jackeline Correa-Vázquez, 45, on eight counts in late May, and the Justice Department and DEA announced the case in early June.
Correa-Vázquez is licensed by the Puerto Rico Board of Nursing as an Advanced Practice Nurse with a clinical concentration in anesthesia. Prosecutors say that between October 2025 and February 2026, she repeatedly accessed vials of fentanyl citrate entrusted to her for patient care, drained them, and refilled them with a clear liquid meant to look like the real thing — concealing the theft from anyone who checked the vial afterward. Investigators have linked roughly 120 vials to the pattern, gathered from a healthcare facility where she worked in anesthesia.
The charges she’s facing
Correa-Vázquez is charged with four counts of tampering with consumer products, which carry up to 10 years in prison per count, and four counts of acquiring a controlled substance by fraud, misrepresentation, forgery, deception or subterfuge, which carry up to four years per count. The case was investigated jointly by the DEA Caribbean Division, the Puerto Rico Police Bureau, the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, and the Puerto Rico Department of Health. She has since been released on bond.
Investigators say no patient injuries have been linked to the tampered vials — they credit hospital staff who noticed the pattern in her waste logs and pull records and reported it before anyone was harmed. That detail matters: a diluted fentanyl vial doesn’t just represent a theft on paper. In an anesthesia setting, a vial that’s quietly been swapped for water can mean a patient going into a procedure with far less pain control than the order calls for, with no one in the room aware anything is wrong until the patient reacts.
This is exactly why the two-nurse witness-and-waste rule for controlled substances exists, and why it’s worth the extra two minutes every single time, even on your busiest shift. A diverted vial doesn’t just put one nurse’s license at risk — it means the next patient who gets that vial gets water instead of pain relief, or worse, an unmedicated induction. Drug diversion by anesthesia staff is a recognized, ongoing problem in healthcare, not a rare fluke, precisely because anesthesia providers often have the most direct, least-witnessed access to concentrated opioids in the building. The system worked here because someone noticed a pattern and said something. If a colleague’s waste documentation, pull times, or automated dispensing activity ever look off to you, report it through your facility’s diversion program. It protects patients, and it protects you.
What’s next
Correa-Vázquez has not been convicted, and she is entitled to a full defense in federal court. No trial date has been publicly set. If convicted on all eight counts, she would face a lengthy federal sentence, and the Puerto Rico Board of Nursing would almost certainly move to revoke her license regardless of the criminal outcome, since board discipline runs on a separate track from a criminal case.