Man charged after Nevada traffic stop uncovers 700 pounds of fentanyl and meth

Federal prosecutors have charged a 26-year-old man with drug trafficking after a speeding stop in rural Nevada led deputies to 13 storage totes holding about 30 pounds of suspected fentanyl and 677 pounds of suspected methamphetamine, the Justice Department said.

Francisco Joel Garcia Farias was driving a pickup on U.S. Highway 93 near Ash Springs on October 13 when a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy stopped him for driving above the speed limit, according to allegations in the criminal complaint. A trained narcotics detection dog alerted on the vehicle, and deputies searched it.

Inside the totes, deputies found roughly 187 packages of a white crystalline substance weighing about 307.22 kilograms and 13 brick-shaped packages weighing about 14 kilograms, prosecutors said. Field testing of samples came back positive for methamphetamine and fentanyl, respectively.

The charges

Garcia Farias is charged with one count of possession with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of a mixture containing fentanyl and one count of possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine. If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life on each count, followed by five years of supervised release, the Justice Department said.

“Anyone who plans to release a deadly drug like fentanyl onto American streets will be prosecuted,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said. The Justice Department identified Garcia Farias as an illegal immigrant in its announcement.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah for the District of Nevada described the scale: “Fourteen kilograms of fentanyl alone represents approximately seven million potentially lethal two-milligram doses—enough to kill more than twice the population of Nevada—and, when combined with over 650 pounds of methamphetamine, represents an estimated street value of approximately $2 million.”

Lincoln County Sheriff Derek Foremaster praised his deputies’ “proactive traffic enforcement and trained K-9 deployment,” and Homeland Security Investigations said it led the case with the sheriff’s office as part of a Homeland Security Task Force.

A criminal complaint is an allegation. Garcia Farias is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the Justice Department said.

Reporting based on the U.S. Department of Justice.