FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

A record-breaking amount of fentanyl was seized — at a legal border crossing

Officers discovered the drugs in an 18-wheeler carting cucumbers from Mexico.
U.S. customs officers seized more than 250 pounds of fentanyl in the largest bust of the ultra-potent, synthetic opioid ever recorded by Customs and Border Protection agents.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized more than 250 pounds of fentanyl in the largest bust of the ultra-potent, synthetic opioid ever recorded by the department. The officers discovered the cache of drugs tucked inside an 18-wheeler crossing into the United States at a legal port of entry in Arizona on Saturday.

The truck was carting cucumbers from Mexico through a border crossing in Nogales, Arizona, when officers unearthed the fentanyl and nearly 400 pounds of methamphetamine, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That’s a combined value of $4.5 million and likely enough fentanyl to kill tens of millions of people.

Advertisement

The 26-year-old driver has since been arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute illegal substances.

“This amount of fentanyl our CBP officers prevented from entering our country equates to an unmeasurable dangerous amount of an opioid that could have harmed so many families,” Nogales Port Director Michael Humphries said in a press conference Thursday announcing the seizure.

The officers sent the fentanyl away for a chemical analysis but noted in a press conference that the synthetic opioid is typically 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine. In recent years, fentanyl has contributed to a far more deadly opioid epidemic and spurred the majority of the 70,000-plus overdose deaths recorded in 2017.

The bust also highlighted an inconvenient truth for the Trump administration as it pushes for a $5.7 billion border wall: The vast majority of illegal drugs come through legal ports of entry. Still, President Donald Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly used the opioid epidemic as a reason why the U.S. must build a wall.

Ohio Republican Jim Jordan — a staunch supporter of the wall from a state devastated by the opioid epidemic — used the drug haul as evidence of the “crisis on our southern border.”

Customs and Border Protection agents caught the truck driver the old-fashioned way, however: They were scanning the 18-wheeler when they noticed irregularities in the trailer's floor, toward the rear of the truck bed. After a secondary inspection, a canine team alerted officers to the odor of illegal drugs.

Cover image: Screenshot via Customs and Border Protection press conference on Thursday, January 31, 2019