Fentanyl seized in N.L.'s largest-ever bust enough to kill half the province, police say

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary announced Wednesday the details of a drug trafficking bust that officers say is the largest in the province's history.

The September operation turned up an array of illicit drugs — including 500 grams of fentanyl, which the police force says is enough of the deadly opioid to kill nearly half of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Investigators said counterfeit prescription opioids and other pills were being manufactured in a trailer in the west end of St. John's, where two people were allegedly mixing fentanyl, carfentanil and other synthetic opioids with other substances and pressing them into pills that resembled Dilaudid and Percocet.

Laboratory results show the substances seized from that trailer included:

• More than 500 grams of fentanyl,
• More than 500 grams of methylfentanyl,
• More than 250 grams of fentanyl and other fentanyl analogues which include carfentanil, acetalfentanyl and fluorofentanyl,
• Over 950 grams of cocaine,
• Over 300 grams of crystal meth,
• And over 2,000 prescription pills including clonazepam, methylphenidate, oxycodone, lorazepam, benzodiazepines, hydromorphone, morphine, alprazolam, amphetamine, codeine and diazepam.

Police say they also seized firearms and drug manufacturing equipment.

Emma Murphy, 24, and Martin Marks, 29, together face over 80 manufacturing, possession, trafficking and weapons-related charges.

Chris Somerton, 27, was charged with trafficking, possession for the purpose of trafficking and possession of property obtained by crime.

Deputy Chief Colin McNeil said police believe Murphy and Marks worked "closely together, side by side," while Somerton was considered a drug runner.

He told reporters Wednesday afternoon the bust was 15 times larger than any in the province's history.

"This drug seizure is like nothing we've seen before in this province. To our knowledge, this is the largest fentanyl seizure to date — and by a large margin," McNeil said.

"This group is referred to as the biggest fentanyl dealer around, and based on what we recovered, they were operating as a one-stop shop for illicit drugs."

McNeil says just two milligrams of fentanyl can be considered a lethal dose. The fentanyl recovered, he said, would be enough to kill 250,000 people.

Carfentanil and the other synthetic opioids police say they recovered from the trailer are magnitudes of order stronger than fentanyl.

McNeil also said some of the fentanyl products also contained xylazine, an animal tranquilizer not approved for human use. Mixing xylazine and opioids can increase the risk of overdose. 

The RNC says anyone using any street drug should inform someone when they use drugs, keep naloxone kits on hand and begin with a low dose. 

"Leave your door unlocked and tell someone to check on you," McNeil said. "Do not use alone."

Bust part of broader RNC strategy

McNeil says the spate of drug busts in the St. John's area in recent months is a direct result of federal and provincial funding.

"We have doubled down on our drug initiatives here," he said. "We've bolstered our drug units in response to the demands that we're seeing ... and as a result, there's a tremendous amount of covert and overt work being done. Seizures like this are happening. Smaller seizures are happening. Interventions, interdictions are happening."

Crime statistics and trends have guided the force's attention to certain areas of the city and types of crime, he added. 

"We set priorities based on the trends that we're seeing through intelligence LED policing initiatives and different things," McNeil said. "So you know, if we have an increase in a particular area, we're going to focus on that particular area."

However, it's not yet clear where the fentanyl in Wednesday's announcement came from.

Fentanyl enters the province from all angles, said Deputy Chief Stephanie Lagace, "whether it be by boat, by car. So we do believe it came from ... within North America and was brought into our province."

That raw fentanyl was "then further manufactured into other types of drugs, cut with other agents and certainly had their own stamp put on it" by the suspects, she said.

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