dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
4:45 PM 05/31/2018
Federal agents conducting drug investigations in Arizona recently seized nearly 1,000 pounds of narcotics and more than 9,000 fentanyl pills.
Officials with the Department of Interior’s Opioid Reduction Task Force conducted interdiction operations between May 15 and May 26 in Arizona. The investigations, which focused on drug trafficking on the Tohono O’odham and Gila River Indian reservations, resulted in 86 arrests, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Agents seized 9,050 counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, 48 pounds of methamphetamine, 1.2 pounds of heroin, 863 pounds of marijuana, a half pound of cocaine and roughly $30,000 in cash. The fentanyl pills, combined with the roughly 913.5 pounds of narcotics, carried an estimated street value of nearly $5 million.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the scale of the problem; and rather than further stigmatizing victims, we are cracking down on the dealers who are selling out our children, selling out our communities, and selling out our nation,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a statement Thursday. “These brave men and women are keeping the opioid dealers up at night, and with good reason; if you are trafficking these drugs, we will find you, arrest you, and bring you to justice.”
Large quantities of narcotics, particularly synthetic opioids like fentanyl, continue to infiltrate the U.S. due to the relentless efforts of traffickers. However, the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is gaining ground against drug movers taking advantage of America’s opioid scourge.
Fentanyl seizures by Border Patrol agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection increased by 72 percent in 2017, a recent report from Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill shows. The number of overall opioid seizures nearly doubled from 579 pounds in 2013 to 1,135 pounds in 2017 — a reflection of the deteriorating addiction crisis in the U.S.
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the U.S.’s deadliest substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
Steve BirrVice Reporter
2:16 PM 04/28/2018 
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced indictments Friday related to an international fentanyl network operated by fugitive Chinese nationals.
Speaking in Fargo, North Dakota, Sessions revealed charges against ten defendants for their role in trafficking synthetic opioids linked to several overdose deaths in the U.S. The charges stem from a joint law enforcement investigation dubbed “Operation Denial,” which began following the overdose death of an 18-year-old man in Grand Forks, North Dakota, reported KVRR.
Three of the 10 defendants are in custody in the U.S., however, the rest remain fugitives. The group faces charges of drug distribution and importation resulting in death, and money laundering.
“They and their co–conspirators allegedly shipped fentanyl and fentanyl analogues from China through the mail and it killed people, killed people, in North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, and Grand Forks,” Sessions said at a press conference addressing law enforcement Friday. “They used the internet, about 30 different aliases, cryptocurrencies, offshore accounts. Each one of you played critical roles in the formation from virtually the beginning of the investigation which has become an international success story.”
The announcement from Sessions came after the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Jian Zhang, owner of a chemical company based in China, and four financial associates from China who worked directly for Zhang.
The five Chinese nationals allegedly used Zhang’s company, Zaron Bio-Tech, to import large amounts of fentanyl and even more powerful synthetic analogs of fentanyl.
Authorities previously unsealed an indictment of Zhang on Oct. 17 in the District of North Dakota, which charged him with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, drug distribution and importation resulting in death, and money laundering. Zhang and his associates are accused of importing and distributing hundreds of bags of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid roughly 30 to 50 times more powerful than pure heroin, which resulted in the deaths of at least four Americans and serious injury of five others.
The announcement from the Treasury Department names Na Chu, Yeyou Chu, Cuiying Liu, and Keping Zhang as co-conspirators in the drug ring. The sanctions effectively freeze any financial assets these individuals hold in the U.S.
Large quantities of narcotics continue to infiltrate the U.S. due to the relentless efforts of traffickers. However, the Department of Justice under Sessions is gaining ground against drug movers taking advantage of America’s opioid scourge. Federal officials recently scored a major victory against narcotics traffickers during an investigation of a distribution network in West Virginia, confiscating enough fentanyl to kill a quarter million Americans.
Drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You AG Sessions, Mr Birr and the DC.
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
5:07 PM 03/02/2018
Illinois police arrested a nurse after he allegedly stole fentanyl patches from the bodies of ill, elderly patients at two rehabilitation homes where he worked.
James Rellihan, 31, is accused of going to the Bloomington Rehabilitation and Health Care Center on his day off, Feb. 24, where he took three fentanyl patches off a terminally ill man. He allegedly told the patient, “It will be OK,” as he removed the patches. Rellihan allegedly entered his former job, Heritage Health in Normal (Ill), two days later and stole fentanyl patches off a man suffering from dementia, The Pantagraph reported.
Rellihan is being held on a $50,000 bond, “given the egregious nature of the offenses,” McLean County assistant state’s attorney Jeff Horve said in a court statement Thursday. Rellihan “denied taking, using or selling” the fentanyl patches, Horve added.
Fentanyl theft cases are rising amid the national opioid epidemic. An Indiana paramedic was recently arrested after admitting to stealing fentanyl vials from ambulance supplies while treating victims at accident scenes.
St. Vincent Hospital and Health Care Center employee Jeanan Joseph admitted to the theft in November — the only paramedic with access to the substance to test positive for fentanyl during a subsequent drug screening.
North Carolina authorities also arrested a nurse found stealing vials of fentanyl from a Winston-Salem hospital Dec. 18, which resulted in an officer to almost suffer an overdose. Forsyth Medical Center fired Brown, following her arrest — the North Carolina Board of Nursing suspended her nursing license.
Fentanyl trumped heroin as the deadliest U.S. substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The substance can be anywhere from 50-to-100 times more powerful than morphine.
Drug overdoses are nationally the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
2:47 PM 03/03/2018
Authorities in Vermont are warning the public about the rapidly increasing threat from cocaine mixed with the deadly opioid fentanyl, which is killing unsuspecting users across the state.
Officials with the Barre Police Department issued a public alert due to a rash of overdoses in the last week, one of which proved fatal. Police say they increasingly do not know what to tell the public to specifically look out for due to the prevalence of fentanyl, which is making all drug batches deadlier, reports WCAX.
The warning is intended for anyone in the area consuming drugs, not just opioid users. Officials say people using cocaine are at particular risk of being exposed to a fatal dose of fentanyl.
“The change recently has been that fentanyl is showing up more often in cocaine,” said Deborah Hopkins, the operations director for Vermont Substance Abuse Services, according to WCAX.
Health officials in Vermont are only the latest to sound the alarm on the threat posed by the infiltration of fentanyl across drug supplies. The Ohio Department of Health recently asked medical professionals and first responders to start using the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan for any situation where a person has overdosed on drugs in case fentanyl is involved.
Fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, is blamed as the primary driver of the addiction crisis and rising overdose deaths. Deaths related to cocaine and fentanyl in Ohio recently jumped by 37 percent, claiming 850 lives in 2017, while deaths related to mixtures of fentanyl and methamphetamine increased by 142 percent.
Authorities fear that because cocaine is more widely used as a social drug than a substance like heroin, many users are unaware of the fatal risks even a small amount of the drug now carries.
“As we see this expansion of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs into the drug supply, the universe of people who might be at risk is much broader,” Christopher Jones, director of the National Mental Health and Substance Abuse Police Laboratory at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, recently told Philly.com. “That’s why you see the really significant spikes in overdose deaths since 2015.”
Fentanyl overtook heroin as the U.S.’s deadliest substance in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimates cocaine-overdose deaths increased from roughly 4,000 in 2009 to more than 6,700 in 2015. Officials predict cocaine-overdose deaths are about to explode in 2017 to nearly 11,000.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein previously warned it takes only 2 milligrams of fentanyl, “the equivalent of a few grains of table salt,” to cause a fatal overdose.
Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.
