TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Court records show a federal grand jury has indicted a Mexican truck driver in the biggest fentanyl bust ever made in the United States.
The indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Tucson last week accuses Juan Antonio Torres-Barraza of transporting into the U.S. nearly 254 pounds (114 kilograms) of the synthetic drug that is fueling a national epidemic of fatal opioid overdoses.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Jan. 26 also found methamphetamine in the drug load detected in a secret compartment inside a tractor-trailer carrying Mexican produce to Arizona.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says fentanyl is now the drug most often involved in fatal overdoses in the U.S.
The federal public defender representing Torres on Tuesday declined a request for comment on the case.