A man attempting to cross the southern border into the United States was arrested on Monday after he was discovered to have five pounds of the lethal drug fentanyl taped to his body underneath his clothes.
Breitbart reports that the man was caught when a law enforcement K-9 sniffed out the drugs and alerted border patrol authorities. The packages were taped to the man’s torso and legs, and contained a total of 5.4 pounds of the drug, worth well over $75,000. After being arrested by border patrol in Nogales, Arizona, the man was handed over to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
The incident reflects a rising trend of drug smuggling across the border, which has reached record highs under Joe Biden’s administration. Since January 2021, the number of hard narcotics smuggled into the U.S. has increased substantially, with 2021 seeing a 100 percent increase of fentanyl seizures at the border compared to 2020. Most of the seizures took place at ports of entry, which is the most commonly-used method for sneaking such drugs into the country.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported that fentanyl is the top cause of overdose deaths in the United States, with over 96,000 Americans dying of the drug between March 2020 and March 2021. One of the most infamous recent examples was the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who died of a fentanyl overdose while in police custody in Minneapolis in May of 2020; his death was falsely blamed on his arresting officer, sparking nationwide race riots over the course of the year.