PORTLAND — The arrests of two men this week on heroin trafficking charges represents a further disruption of Portland’s heroin distribution system, police said Wednesday.

“It’s the suburban communities that are in danger. These people are desperate to find drugs and they know they can’t operate in Portland for awhile,” said Joseph Loughlin, a narcotics detective.

Police said that in the past nine months, they had arrested 11 alleged dealers who bought heroin in Massachusetts and New York and sold it in Portland to support their own addictions.

The arrests of nine people who allegedly sold heroin to undercover officers nearly eliminated the drug from the streets of Portland for several months, but resulted in more addicts falsifying drug prescriptions, said Loughlin, who has investigated the drug trade in Maine for two years.

The latest arrests came Tuesday night when police apprehended Daniel J. Casale, 29, and Russell Wogan, 35, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department.

The two were “probably supplying 80 percent of the heroin coming into the city of Portland,” said Sgt. Arthur Shaughnessy, head of the Portland police narcotics unit.

When Casale and Wogan were examined after their arrests, authorities found 46 one-dose bags of heroin in Casale’s lower intestine, while Wogan had 42 bags. Police said the men had inserted the bags there to smuggle them.

The white plastic bags each were embossed with Red Eagles, which is the name and logo of a wholesale dealer in Massachusetts, said George Connick, a Portland police narcotic detective.

The two men appeared weak Wednesday as they stood before U.S. Magistrate David M. Cohen, who granted a defense request that doctors examine Casale and Wogan immediately because they were going through narcotics withdrawal.