(The Center Square) – Although passengers will sometimes get their bottle of water thrown out going through airport security, one traveler had much bigger problems, according to an announcement from the Phoenix Police Department on Tuesday.
Phoenix PD airport officers arrested a woman headed to Atlanta for having 6 kilograms of powdered fentanyl, as well as 50,000 fentanyl pills in their checked bag. The Transportation Security Administration will scan bags that people decide to keep in the cargo hold of a plane during a flight, and authorities arrested the women at the airport once the drugs were discovered, according to a Facebook post from the department.
“A woman travelling to Atlanta from Phoenix was arrested by [Phoenix Police’s] Airport officers after they found six vacuum-sealed kilo bricks of fentanyl in the suspect’s checked luggage,” the post stated.
Fentanyl trafficking remains a top concern among Americans, whether it’s coming immediately across the United States-Mexico border through a port of entry or elsewhere. Opioid overdoses result in an estimated five deaths daily in the Grand Canyon State, and many of those are attributed to the drug, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. CBS News reported that the Drug Enforcement Administration says that Mexican drug cartels are almost entirely behind the rise of illicit fentanyl into the United States. As for the woman arrested, it’s unclear where it was sourced from.