Prosecutors: Suspects Fly into Chicago Carrying 44 Pounds of Fentanyl

Two arrests were made when authorities found a huge amount of fentanyl in checked bags at Chicago’s Midway Airport.

According to CWB Chicago, the 44 pounds of fentanyl discovered on Tuesday were enough to kill every person living in Chicago more than three times:

Two men were arrested at Midway Airport after they arrived on a flight with 44 pounds of fentanyl in their luggage, prosecutors said.

That's enough fentanyl to kill every Chicagoan more than three times.https://t.co/G3VJ0kHCNL

— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) May 4, 2023

Fentanyl is described as a “potent synthetic opioid” that is about 100 times more potent than morphine, per the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The CWB Chicago report detailed the recent bust involving the two Michigan men:

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration learned last month that Jamire Holingshed, 26, and Robert Lewis, 24, may have been carrying narcotics as they flew together from Los Angeles to Midway on April 13, officials said. Investigators confirmed that the men made the trip and determined they would fly the same route on Tuesday.

After their flight landed around 6 p.m., officers assigned to a DEA task force took their checked bags to a controlled area where a canine indicated narcotics were present in both suitcases, Assistant State’s Attorney Jennifer Walker said during the bail hearing.

Once the pair was stopped at the baggage claim, police eventually brought their checked bags, and the suspects allowed officials to search.

Each of them had one checked suitcase, and both allegedly held ten one-kilogram bricks of fentanyl. The men later denied knowing each other and that the luggage belonged to them.

They also said they did not have any knowledge of what the fentanyl investigators discovered.

Meanwhile, “Holingshed allegedly told police that someone paid him to bring the suitcase to Chicago, but he didn’t know who gave it to him. He also didn’t know who was paying him to deliver the luggage or to whom he was supposed to give it in Chicago, Walker said,” the report noted.

A similar incident happened in May 2022 when a Chicago man was reportedly found with more than six pounds of fentanyl in his vehicle.

The Breitbart News report noted that “four times as much fentanyl was coming over the United States-Mexico border under President Joe Biden’s leadership compared with two years ago when former President Donald Trump was in office.”

The outlet has covered extensively the issue of fentanyl plaguing Americans.

The most recent suspects, who apparently do not have criminal histories, were charged with manufacture-delivery of more than 900 grams of the drug.

Each suspect’s bail was placed at $1,555,500. The amount references the street value of the drugs involved in the case.

Ten percent of the bail is required to be freed from jail. Meanwhile, the pair is not allowed to go home to Michigan to await their trial, according to Judge Maryam Ahmad.