The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized a massive Mexican shipment of fentanyl earlier this week — over 1,500 miles north of the southern border.
Federal agents just outside of Detroit snagged 20 kilograms, over 40 pounds, of the deadly drug as it was in transit to the Motor City from Grand Rapids, The Detroit Free Press reported. The DEA said that the fentanyl was produced in Mexico before making its way to Grand Rapids and then being transported to Detroit.
“Drug cartels like CJNG and Sinaloa attempt to flood our communities with illicit drugs,” Detroit’s DEA Chief Orville Greene said in a statement Friday. “We will continue to work vigorously to identify other associates tied to the delivery of this fentanyl that would have caused untold suffering had it reached its intended destination.”
A mere 2 mg of fentanyl can be deadly, which means the 20 kilograms seized in Michigan would be enough to kill 10 million people, nearly the exact population of the Great Lakes State. After a tip from investigators on the west side of the state, federal agents along with local authorities in Metro Detroit arrested a woman from Ohio who was allegedly delivering the shipment of the drug, which was in powder form. Authorities seized a gun along with the fentanyl, according to the Free Press.
“Just because you’re not situated on the southern border doesn’t mean your community is not affected and doesn’t mean that people are not dying from it,” Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said.
Last month, enough fentanyl to kill 50 million people was seized by Border Patrol at the southern California border. That shipment of fentanyl also came from Mexico and was likely either smuggled across the border through a vehicle or on foot by drug mules.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador recently denied that fentanyl is produced in his country, but according to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Mexican transnational criminal organizations are “increasingly producing wholesale quantities of illicit fentanyl pills and smuggling them into the United States.” The DEA said that Mexico’s two largest cartels, the Sinaloa and the New Generation Jalisco, “are likely the primary trafficking groups responsible for smuggling fentanyl into the United States from Mexico.”
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The DEA reported that 50.6 million fake prescription pills laced with fentanyl and 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder had been found in the U.S. last year. More than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses in 2021 alone.