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According to the City of New Bedford Police Department, narcotics detectives there successfully concluded an investigation into a fentanyl distribution operation.
Police in New Bedford, Massachusetts announced on Tuesday that they had made a “sizeable fentanyl arrest.”
Led by Det. Matthew Sylvia of the department’s Organized Crime Intelligence Bureau, they executed a search warrant on the home of the target of the investigation and discovered approximately 428 grams of fentanyl was discovered along with digital scales and packaging materials used in the distribution of illicit narcotics. $1,377 in cash was also seized.
City of New Bedford Police Department
428 grams of fentanyl is enough to kill 214,000 people.
The suspect, 41-year-old Ricardo Cruz De Los Santos, was taken into custody and charged with trafficking more than 200 grams of fentanyl.
Also on Tuesday, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office in Missouri announced that they too had concluded a months-long investigation with the arrest of a couple in Avondale.
The sheriff’s Special Tactics and Response (STAR) Team served a search warrant on the home of Garrett Moulder, 38, and Elizabeth Dye, 31, where they discovered more than 105 grams of fentanyl, enough to kill 52,500 people.
Clay County Sheriff's Office
Officers also found paraphernalia for packaging and distributing the drugs, meth, cocaine, five firearms and three suppressors. One of the guns had been reported as stolen.
The fentanyl problem has become such an issue in some parts of the country that several local governments are taking unusual measures to try and lessen it.
In West Virginia, the Republican Senate president Craig Blair wants to legalize marijuana with the hopes that it will lower the state’s skyrocketing number of fatal fentanyl overdoses.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), West Virginia had more fatal fentanyl overdoses per capita in 2022 than any other state in America.
A big part of the reason for that, according to Blair, is that “there is a problem in the state of West Virginia when marijuana, over 70 percent of it that gets tested, has fentanyl on it.”
He also supports creating legislation that would apply the death penalty to people who illegally sell the drug in the state.
In Suffolk County, New York, District Attorney Ray Tierney is pushing a package of bills that would apply a manslaughter charge to dealers who sell fentanyl-laced drugs that result in an overdose death.
“While legislation will never be the sole solution, these common sense changes will save lives,” Tierney said.