New York is the latest state to fall prey to the recent surge in heroin use with the amount of heroin in New York City reaching its highest level since the early 1990s.

The increasing levels of heroin use are upsetting law enforcement officials, who claim that heroin kingpins are entering the market in New York City and expanding their markets along the Eastern Seaboard.

Law enforcement officials have seized an enormous amount of heroin this year, already surpassing last year's totals. Officials told the New York Times that the amount of heroin seized this year is the largest amount that has been confiscated since 1991.

Heroin travels to New York from Mexico with trucks stopping at warehouses to transfer heroin into cars, where the drugs are transported to mills in the Bronx or Upper Manhattan. Prices for the drug range from $6 to $10 per envelope.

It is clear that there is a nationwide surge in heroin use with awareness of the epidemic heightened by the deaths of well-known figures, such as actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Due to the increase in the drug's use, drug organizations are now rising to meet the demand by funneling more heroin into New York and expanding operations from there.

"We're kind of the head of the Hydra," said Bridget G. Brennan, a special narcotics prosecutor. "This is highly organized, high volume, and it's being moved much more efficiently and effectively to reach out to a broader user base."

Brennan's office recorded more than 288 pounds of heroin that was seized in the first four months of this year, which does not account for street-level drug deals.

The rate of overdose is the highest on Staten Island, but authorities do not have cases there because they are mostly low-level drug deals.

Staten Island narcotics detectives have seen an increase in the arrests of users and dealers with the amount of heroin seized from the street up 61 percent compared to 2013. Despite the lack of a big drug organization on the island, detectives are finding more organized networks in the area.

"It's cheap, it's potent and there's a user demand here right now, and they're flooding the market," said James J. Hunt, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office. "In my time, we've never seen the amount of large heroin seizures like this."

Around 35 percent of the heroin seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration was seized in New York State.

It's easy to see why large-scale drug operations flock to New York City: The city has a large population and easy access to other East Coast metropolises.

The drug is bundled in "heroin mills" in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. One recent raid found bags of heroin stamped with an image of Heisenberg, Walter White's drug-dealing alter ego from the popular television show "Breaking Bad."

Authorities arrested two suspected high-level drug traffickers Friday in the Bronx and seized 53 pounds of heroin along with assault rifles, over $80,000 and 20 pounds of cocaine.

Guillermo Esteban Margarin, 33, and Edualin Tapia, 28, were arrested at a Hartford safe house with the heroin, which they transported from the Bronx in suitcases and a white box.

The closer users are to the source of the drug deals the lower the prices: a kilogram of heroin could be $40,000 in NYC, according to a drug enforcement official, but could be as high as $80,000 in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Brennan said that in many cases, the Sinaloa cartel, the largest cartel in Mexico, is exporting heroin using cocaine-trafficking routes then having the drug transported in tractor-trailers.

The NYPD seized 786 pounds of heroin in 2013, the highest amount in five years. If the rate of heroin seizures continues as it has been this year, the amount of heroin seized will surpass last year's totals.