Fentanyl Seized in Record New York City Bust Was Enough to Kill 32 Million

The New York City police made its largest seizure in city history confiscating almost 200 pounds of synthetic opioid fentanyl. The amount is enough to kill more than 30 million people in overdoses.

The police stated last week that more than 140 pounds of pure fentanyl and nearly 50 pounds of fentanyl-laced heroin were seized from a Kew Gardens neighborhood in Queens, according to Huffington Post. A total of 213 pounds of narcotics were confiscated from the apartment.

Rogelio Alvarado-Robles and Blanca Flores-Solis were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance.

“Given that a dose of fentanyl weighing two to three milligrams can be deadly, the [140 pounds] of pure fentanyl alone seized in this case could have yielded approximately 32 million lethal doses,” the NYPD said.

Just one month later, the police conducted a second narcotics raid in the Bronx. The search resulted in the seizure of 55 pounds of fentanyl and heroin, the NYPD said.

Law enforcement officials claim that the drugs recovered in the two busts have a street value of over $30 million.

“The sheer volume of fentanyl pouring into the city is shocking,” Bridget G. Brennan, New York City‘s special narcotics prosecutor, said in a statement. “It’s not only killing a record number of people in New York City, but the city is used as a hub of regional distribution for a lethal substance that is taking thousands of lives throughout the Northeast.”

The Center of Disease Control and Prevention states that Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids surpassed heroin as the leading cause of drug overdose deaths in the United States last year. In 2016, more than 20,000 people in the U.S. died from synthetic opioids.