Couple had 21 kilos of drugs in their possession and could kill 50 million people

In what is believed to be possibly the largest carfentanil seizure in the county Riverside, California, and one of the largest in the history of this west coast state, the prosecutor’s office indicted a man and woman from the The town of Perris for four serious crimes related to drug trafficking. The quantity of drugs removed completely surprised the authorities.

In late 2020, Riverside Police opened an investigation into local drug traffickers’ links to Mexican cartels. Is that Perris, where they were held Andrés Morales and Alyssa Ponce, is located near the border between the United States and Mexico. Investigators were investigating an alleged drug trafficking organization believed to be supplying fentanyl, cocaine and heroin to the county.

On August 17, a home invasion in Perris resulted in the seizure of 21 kilos of carfentanil, four kilos of cocaine and one of heroin. Although Morales and Ponce were not present during the operation, authorities subsequently arrested and charged them.

As reported by local authorities, carfentanil is a artificial opioid analogue fentanyl. It is highly regulated and is neither designed nor approved for use in humans. And it is more potent and potentially much more deadly than fentanyl.

The fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. It only takes about two milligrams of fentanyl to be a lethal amount.

Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 times more potent than morphine. A lethal dose of carfentanil in humans is believed to be nanograms, much smaller than the two milligrams of fentanyl that can kill.

For the Riverside Police Department, those 21 kilograms of this fentanyl analogue mixed with other drugs would have been enough to potentially killing over 50 million people.

The two suspects were charged with four felons for possession for the sale of fentanyl, cocaine and heroin. At the moment, the detainees are in a detention center, but the two they pleaded not guilty of the crimes for which they are accused.

The next hearing with the judge and the prosecution will be the November 9. Until then, authorities will try to find more evidence to support their charge.