Largest Liquid Fentanyl Bust in US History Just Happened Right Here in Texas
FROM DECEMBER 5th, 2022: As fentanyl overdoses continue to surge both in Texas and nationwide, some good news out of South Texas. A traffic stop near Corpus Christi, TX turned into a history-making drug bust, reports CBS 19.
"During the search we located a compartment built in the gas tank of this vehicle, and inside the gas tank was a modified tank which had roughly 25 pounds or 3 gallons of liquid fentanyl," explained Mike Tamez with the Nueces County District Attorney's Criminal Interdiction Unit.
You've no doubt heard of fentanyl, but if you still have questions as to what exactly it is, according to the CDC "Pharmaceutical fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, approved for treating severe pain, typically advanced cancer pain. It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine."
These police officers in Nueces County were able to get 25 pounds of this devastatingly harmful drug off the street. "It’s killing people," Tamez said via CBS 19. "It's definitely one of the most dangerous drugs and highly addictive drugs on the market today."
The DEA states that just two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal depending on a person’s body size, tolerance and past usage. Which is scary because drug dealers aren't normally that concerned with minutia of drug making. And it's entirely possible that someone can take it without realizing how much they consumed, or that they took it at all.
- 42% of pills tested for fentanyl contained at least 2 mg of fentanyl, considered a potentially lethal dose.
- Drug trafficking organizations typically distribute fentanyl by the kilogram. One kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people.