[ad_1]
FIRST ON FOX: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is hailing regulation enforcement efforts and promising to “hunt down” fentanyl traffickers after the profitable seizure of a large 15,000 pills disguised as OxyContin by Florida authorities on Thursday.
“Fentanyl flowing over our southern border is a direct result of the Biden Border Crisis and in Florida, we will not allow it to take the lives of innocent people,” DeSantis stated in a press release to Fox News Digital.
“In Florida, we will hunt down anyone who brings fentanyl into our communities and puts lives at risk,” DeSantis, who can be working for the 2024 Republican White House nomination, stated. “I am thankful to the officers who continue to put the safety of their communities first and apprehend these criminals.”
His feedback got here after the Florida Highway Patrol Criminal Interdiction Unit arrested a suspect on Thursday and seized the haul of medicine in Osceola County.
SENATE REPORT SOUNDS ALARM ON SURGE IN FENTANYL DEATHS AMONG OLDER AMERICANS: ‘SILENT EPIDEMIC’
Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks to friends throughout a marketing campaign rally on the Thunderdome on December 2, 2023, in Newton, Iowa. Iowa Republicans will be the primary to pick their social gathering’s nominee for president after they go to caucus on January 15, 2024. ( Scott Olson/Getty Images)
According to the state, troopers stopped a white Mercedes driving recklessly and pursued it going over 100 miles an hour, hitting different autos and driving on the fallacious aspect of the freeway. The driver, Jonathan Nicola, crashed and was taken into custody for site visitors offenses.
During the next search of the automobile, officers discovered a loaded handgun, drug paraphernalia and 15,000 pills in a vacuum-sealed bag. The automobile was decided to have been stolen. Nicola has since been charged with drug trafficking and possession, as nicely as automobile and weapons expenses.
Illicit fentanyl is usually manufactured in Mexico utilizing Chinese precursors after which moved throughout the U.S. land border. While nearly all of seizures happen at ports of entry, officers have warned about fentanyl being smuggled in between ports and previous overwhelmed Border Patrol brokers who’re coping with a historic migrant disaster.
DOJ RENEWS SCOTUS PUSH TO ACT AFTER TEXAS SEIZES BORDER AREAS, BLOCKS BORDER PATROL FROM ENTERING
January 12, 2024: Florida regulation enforcement seize 15,000 fentanyl pils.
“Despite the unabated flow of Fentanyl flowing into our nation through the open southern border, State Troopers wake up every day willingly putting themselves in high-risk situations like this, so that they can put evil people behind bars,” Florida Dept. of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Dave Kerner stated in a press release.
“Despite the advantages the drug cartels reap from the open border, the Florida Highway Patrol will never back down from the mission Governor DeSantis has assigned us; keep our communities safe, and fight back against the cartel driven devastation,” he stated.
Of the over 107,000 overdose deaths in 2021, 75% concerned an opioid, in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC.) The drug will be deadly in tiny doses attributable to it being 50 occasions stronger than heroin, and is usually both combined with, or disguised as, different medicine, so customers are unaware they’re ingesting fentanyl.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The Biden administration has put the rise in seizures of the drug down to raised screening and know-how at ports of entry, and has stated it wants extra funding. But Republicans have stated it is because of a rise in makes an attempt as a results of the border disaster, which means that extra of the drug might be getting by means of.
[ad_2]
Source hyperlink