Concord police announce arrest of man considered major city dealer

A Concord man who has described himself as one of the larger drug dealers in the city has been arrested and is facing multiple felony drug and firearm charges, according to Concord Police.

Matthew Snyder, 31, had around $10,500 worth of fentanyl as well as methamphetamine and a loaded shotgun at his encampment site behind the 7/11 on South Main Street when police searched it and arrested him in early April, according to court documents.

Sources in Concord directed police attention to Snyder, known by the nickname “Meech,” over the last eight months. Police said they received tips about Snyder and conducted multiple controlled purchases from him through an informant that had worked with him before, according to court documents.

Snyder was initially arrested on April 8 and released into treatment, but he fled during transport and never began the program. He was found and reapprehended at a hotel on Hall Street on the afternoon of April 13, after local and state police searched nearby encampments. He is now being held on preventative detention.

Long before his arrests, in June, 2025, Snyder was shot in the back during a robbery in his tent under the Water Street bridge. Within weeks, sources told police to investigate him as a dealer in the city, according to a report by Detective Andrew Putney, including a source who had both bought from and sold on behalf of Snyder.

By the winter, multiple sources pointed to Snyder as one of, if not the, major seller of illicit drugs in the city, according to court documents. In January, one person who ran deliveries for Snyder described him as “the big guy right now” and said he would acquire large quantities of fentanyl through Massachusetts, police said.

Snyder has previous convictions on theft and drug charges and was on probation from charges out of Manchester.

Snyder told police that both people who assisted him in sales and those he sold to were unhoused people in the Concord area, according to Putney’s report.

Snyder left the Water Street Bridge area around the time the city moved to sweep and clear encampments there and in Healy Park. He was later among those who formed an encampment near the methadone clinic on Hall Street before he moved to his location behind the 7/11 in December, according to court documents.

A police search of Snyder’s encampment found about 350 grams of fentanyl, according to court documents. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration pegs 2 miligrams as a potentially lethal dose of the drug, meaning the seizure included well over 150,000 potentially fatal doses. Police estimated the sale value – conservatively, the report states – at just under $10,500.

Police also found cash, methamphetamine, a BB gun, a magazine with 26 rounds and a loaded shotgun at the site. Snyder told police he had looked into arming himself after the shooting last summer, but a cousin had brought him the gun to get rid of it because it was malfunctioning.

Gold bars and cash of an unspecified value were also found among Snyder’s belongings and in the pockets of a female detained by police at his tent.

During the fingerprinting process, Putney’s report states, Snyder said that, “it was going to be ‘dry’ for a while around here, referring to there being a lack of drugs in the area due to his arrest.”

Snyder’s charges include three counts of sale of a controlled substance from his initial arrest. After fleeing and being brought back into custody, he was further charged with two more counts of drug sales, as well as one count of felony possession and a charge as an armed career criminal.

Police asked anyone with information to contact Detective Putney at 603-225-8600 or the Concord Regional Crimeline at 603-226-3100.