The US Customs and Border Protection agency says it has seized a large quantity of deadly fentanyl in a shipment from South Africa it detained on 21 September.
In total, the fentanyl it found could have killed 220,700 people, the agency said in a statement this week.
The drugs were packed in a bottle labelled as “Hydrozone ph-Balance”, a genuine product sold in Namibia. But instead of the advertised “proprietary blend of sodium bicarbonate, potassium citrate, magnesium chloride, calcium and boron”, a customs inspection discovered it contained fentanyl, the hugely addictive synthetic opioid often added to heroin.
Clandestine fentanyl in the United States typically comes from Mexico.
The South African shipment was labelled as water purification chemicals, the border agency said, and also contained a small bag of cocaine, valued at about R60,000, that had been marked as a magnesium mix, and a small bag with more fentanyl that had been labelled as “bicarbonate minerals”.
The drugs were seized at the container port of Louisville, and had been destined for Littleton, a city of some 50,000 people in Colorado.
The customs agency did not disclose details of the shipment, including where exactly in South Africa it had originated.
South Africa is considered a trans-shipment point for drugs from east to west, as well as for drugs entering and leaving the continent.
On occasion, that means gigantic consignments, though typical smuggling attempts are small.
Source: Business Insider
