Largest Fentanyl Bust Ever Made on Arizona Border
On Thursday, Jan. 31, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported that they had made their largest fentanyl bust ever. They seized 254 pounds of fentanyl as well as 295 pounds of methamphetamine on the southern border in Nogales, Arizona. This bust outweighed the previous record capture of fentanyl from August, 2017, where 145 pounds of fentanyl was found in a Queens, New York apartment, according to the FDA.
The drugs were found hidden under the floorboard of a tractor trailer on Saturday, Jan. 26. Although the truck was transporting cucumbers, the scan was conducted because of suspected “anomalies” in the load, according to Time Magazine. The police dogs at the agency also notified the officials present of the drugs in the load. This capture was estimated to be worth $3.5 million for the drug in powder form and about $1.18 million for the methamphetamine in street value.
Nogales CBP Port Director Michael Humphries said that “the size of a few grains of salt of fentanyl, which is a dangerous opioid, can kill a person very quickly” and that the seizure prevented the harm of numerous families.
Fentanyl’s legal prescription is used to provide relief to cancer patients at the end of their lives. The drug is mostly seen as a white powder mixed with heroin, as well as blue pills that are counterfeits of prescription drugs such as oxycodone. The FDA stated that fentanyl accounted for 29 % of the 63,000 fatal overdoses from 2016. This drug also poses a significant risk to the dogs on the job. Vanda Felbab- Brown, who studies drug policy at the Brookings Institution, said that sniffing out the drug is a “tremendous risk for dogs” and that “its so potent it can kill dogs by just the smell.”
In the wake of this capture, there are several arguments. The Washington Post reported that these drugs were captured at a legal border crossing, and that in lieu of the President’s claims that a wall will prohibit the trafficking of drugs their fact-checking team has debunked these claims. The Washington Post reported that “the majority of illicit drugs enter the United States through legal ports of entry.” Additionally, there are tunnels dug to transport drugs across the border.
These claims provide the idea that the wall President Trump proposed would not stop drug trafficking. However, Trump has not responded to the backlash of his proposed wall in relation to this drug bust. President Trump tweeted Thursday, “our great U.S. Border Patrol Agents made the biggest Fentanyl bust in our Country’s history. Thanks, as always, for a job well done!” Doug Coleman, the DEA’s special agent for Phoenix, also said that the seizure was “pure, old fashioned police work,” and that it was just based on a hunch of the agent who found the drugs.
The truck driver was a 26 year old man. He was arrested by officials and charged with the possession of drugs with the intent to distribute them, according to NBC News.