Traffic Stop Uncovers Drugs With Power to Kill 600,000 People

A simple traffic stop turned into a staggering find for authorities Wednesday afternoon.

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A driver was pulled over for speeding at approximately 2:45 p.m. Wednesday afternoon on westbound I-80 near Lincoln, Nebraska. The driver would later tell authorities that he was on his way to York, Nebraska, less than an hour west of Lincoln. What they found in the vehicle was scary to think about.

After getting consent to search the vehicle, the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office said in a press conference that authorities seized an estimated 60,000 fentanyl pills that were inside a backpack in the vehicle. The pills weighed 13.2 pounds and were marked M30, a masking technique to make them appear to be oxycodone. A photo of one of the bags seized is below.

The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office says that each pill would have a street value of around $18, meaning approximately $1.08 million in drugs were recovered at the stop. Even scarier is that they say each of the pills has enough fentanyl to provide 10 lethal doses.

39-year-old Luis Salazar of Omaha, Nebraska was arrested and charged with possession with intent to deliver.

Late this past summer, a traffic stop west of Lincoln, Nebraska recovered a total of 120 combined pounds of fentanyl and methamphetamine, with a street value of $3.3 million. A July traffic stop ended up finding 60 pounds of meth, more than two pounds of heroin, and over a half-pound of fentanyl.