War on Drugs

60-year-old CA man arrested, possessed enough fentanyl to kill 12 million people

Published

1 year ago

June 27, 2022

California Highway Patrol officers arrested 60-year-old suspected drug dealer Alfonso Gomez-Santana last week during a traffic stop. Officers found four kilos of fentanyl inside his car, during the stop, and an additional $250,000 in fentanyl pills and 122 grams methamphetamine when searching his home.

Gomez-Santana is being charged with felonies for possessing enough fentanyl to kill 12 million people, with one felony count of sale or transport of a controlled substance and two felony counts of possession of sale with intent to sell.

Fentanyl-related deaths are plaguing this country, and the drug dealer is only facing a maximum sentence of six years and eight months in jail.

“It is unconscionable that someone who has the ability to kill 12 million people is facing just a handful of years in jail,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.

“Every parent in America should be petrified that one day they are going to walk into their child’s bedroom and find them dead because their child thought they were experimenting with recreational drugs, and instead drug dealers sold them a deadly dose of fentanyl,” Spitzer said.

“This is not fear-mongering; this is reality – and if we don’t start strengthening penalties for drug dealers, it’s going to be the reality for you or someone you love.”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention drug-related overdose deaths topped 100,000 annually for the first time last year.

China

Biden to lift sanctions on China in exchange for third promise to combat fentanyl

Published

3 weeks ago

November 15, 2023

Sara Carter Staff

Reportedly President Joe Biden is making deals with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help improve anti-drug trafficking measures. China is one of the top fentanyl producers and distributors, culminating in a pandemic of fentanyl overdoses and deaths in the United States.

The Biden administration will be lifting sanctions on a Chinese government ministry, in exchange for bolstering anti-drug trafficking measures, Bloomberg reported. “We’re hoping to see some progress on that issue this coming week,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday, according to the New York Post. “That could then open the door to further cooperation on other issues where we aren’t just managing things, but we’re actually delivering tangible results.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation noted that should a deal materialize, it will be at least the third time that China has promised to get tough on fentanyl. In 2016, China agreed to increase counter-narcotics operations, and Xi again agreed to launch a crackdown in 2018. Nonetheless, China and Mexico are “the primary source countries for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the United States,” according to a 2020 DEA intelligence report.

“China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States.”

President Joe Biden and Xi are meeting for the first time in over a year during this week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco. Sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will crack down on Chinese companies manufacturing chemical precursors for fentanyl in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions on the Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science, which the Commerce Department added to the Entity List in 2020 for “engaging in human rights violations and abuses” in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.