AUSTIN, Texas — Law enforcement made the largest bust of liquid fentanyl in national history during a traffic stop in a small town 120 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border — where former President Donald Trump rallied supporters earlier this fall and warned about the powerful drug cartels.
U.S. Border Patrol and local law enforcement from Nueces County Sheriff’s Department thwarted a massive drug smuggling attempt that resulted from pulling over a vehicle in Robstown, a suburb of Corpus Christi.
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BORDER CRISIS NOT TO BLAME FOR SUICIDE AMONG BORDER OFFICIALS
Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Chief Gloria Chavez said agents worked with the sheriff’s office to interdict and seize what is now the “largest amount of liquid fentanyl in the history of the USA,” according to a statement posted to Twitter. Chavez did not note the date or time of the incident.
Authorities found 25 pounds, or three gallons, of fentanyl hidden inside the vehicle’s gas tank. Chavez estimated that this single haul prevented 5.7 million potentially fatal doses from making it into U.S. communities.
https://twitter.com/USBPChiefRGV/status/1598814215132909569
“A total of 25 pounds (three gallons) of fentanyl valued at $1.8M was located in a compartment within the gas tank,” Chavez wrote in a post to Twitter. “This lethal amount is enough to kill a population of 5.665 million people which is 2 1/2 times the size of Houston, Texas!”
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley region of South Texas told the Washington Examiner on Monday that the Nueces County District Attorney’s Office was the lead investigator in the case and directed questions to that office. The district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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In late October, Trump held a rally in Robstown, where he made a final appeal to voters in the Lone Star State ahead of the midterm elections.
Throughout his more than 90 minutes at the podium, Trump repeatedly returned to the issues of border security and immigration — top issues on the minds of voters in South Texas, where three Hispanic Republican women were in tight races to win border districts that have never gone to a conservative. Ultimately, just one member of the trio won, Monica De La Cruz.
“Since the end of the Trump administration, the drug cartels have seen their revenues skyrocket by an astounding 2,500%. If they were a Wall Street company, their stock would be through the roof from $500 million to last year, $13 billion in one year,” Trump told attendees.
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Trump blamed rising crime across the country on the prevalence of illicit drugs nationwide, which he attributed to vulnerabilities at the southern border that transnational criminal organizations have been able to penetrate.
“A lot of the crime that we have — the robberies and all of the different things — they are caused by drugs,” said Trump. “You end that, you end the drug situation coming into your country. You’ll end 75-80% of the crime coming into America.”
