DETROIT (WWJ) The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) announced they seized six pounds of fentanyl, or enough to kill well over one million people, at the Detroit/Windsor border in early June.
On June 2nd; officers with the Office of Field Operations were inspecting inbound international mail at the Fort Street Cargo Facility, on Fort Street by the Ambassador Bridge when a K9 alerted them to the “possible presence of the synthetic opioid,” they said in a statement.
Officers spotted multiple plastic bags of pills inside the package, and further testing identified it as fentanyl, the CBP said.
The pills were seized. Homeland Security is conducting the investigation.
“I can tell you that the dangers of fentanyl cannot be overstated,” Director of Field Operations Marty C. Raybon said in the statement. “According to the CDC, in 2023, there were over 100,000 drug overdose deaths, with synthetic opioids like fentanyl being the main contributors. Given that just 2 milligrams can be a lethal dose, this amount had the potential to kill over 1.3 million people.”
According to the CBP, the discovery is the “largest of its kind” in the Port of Detroit’s history and one of the “largest inbound fentanyl seizures on the northern border in the last five years.”