Suspected narco courier nabbed in Maine with 3 million USD worth of fentanyl
A restaurant in rural Auburn, Maine had taken delivery of a strange package. It was a large crate employees expected to contain mugs the business had ordered. However, inside they had discovered a plastic tote with a 31 pound (14 kg) package containing some mystery substance. They called law enforcement who had then tentatively identified the mystery substance as fentanyl, one of the world's most dangerous synthetic opioid drugs. The tote had a shipping label with the address of the restaurant but the name of someone not employed there. That person was a local man named Jeremy Mercier. He was arrested and charged with a slew of drug offenses in connection with this cargo whose street value is estimated at 3 million USD.
I am typically opposed to the whole "war on drugs" but I can see how fentanyl can be something one can be criminally charged for. Not so much because it is a drug but because it can be viewed as a danger factor as it is a very powerful poison. A small fraction of a gram of that substance can kill and thus improper handling of it can be viewed as reckless endangerment.
At any rate, the drug is so powerful that, once again, millions of dollars worth of it can fit in a small bag. Clearly, if it were not for a chance encounter and limited wisdom of the would-be courier this bag would likely have hit the street as was the intent of the distribution organization. Quite likely, a few overdose deaths would have resulted, or even more than a few.
I truly wonder if the only sure way to get this menace of a drug of the streets would be, paradoxically, drug organization. Give the danger of fentanyl, no legitimate business would likely want anything to do with it and would instead offer a variety of other, far less dangerous, recreational drugs. Of course, there is no way to know if this hypothesis is viable unless we put it to a real life test.
References
Man arrested after $3 million worth of drugs shipped to Maine restaurant
Associated Press, 30 April 2023
Massive fentanyl cargo seized in Colorado in June
@borepstein , 3 August 2022
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All this is strange. How can you send such a parcel with a courier, it is not known where it will go.
You mean, how could the organization trust a guy like that?
I think, because they knew he'd do exactly as he is told. They expected him to possess the instinct of self-preservation. 😄
You are absolutely right it is small but its cost is very high such things should be completely removed as they are very harmful to people's health. When a person gets into this state of intoxication, it becomes very difficult for him to leave it. Here in Pakistan, there are also many people who sit on the side of the road. They sit there and get drunk. The police of Pakistan has not been able to control even these people till date.
Why this business is as profitable as it is now I am not sure how you could even hope to stop it.
I wonder how come it is so easy to carry such dangerious and precious drug via a courier.
Why? For one thing, how do you stop that?
It is logistically next to impossible.
We are talking a million dollar cargo that fits in an attache case. How do you reliably intercept something like that?
What is intelligence service for then?
For whom?