"The last thing we want is for the U.S. Postal Service to become the nation's largest drug dealer,"...

CBS News reported this morning,

Law enforcement officers in Virginia have seized enough fentanyl to kill 14 million people, busting a massive three-state drug ring as part of what they called "Operation Cookout." Thirty-five suspects were arrested, and four others are on the run.

"This opioid crisis is not an issue that is happening someplace else, or to someone else. It's happening right here in Norfolk," said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In total, authorities seized over 30 kilograms of fentanyl, 30 kilograms of heroin, five kilograms of cocaine and over $700,000. It's the largest drug takedown in Virginia in 15 years. They also seized roughly 24 firearms, including an AK-47.

"We're not talking about $500 and $600 deals, we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars," Terwilliger said. "You know, $20,000 in the trunk of somebody's car in a gym bag, you know, behind a local restaurant."

Terwilliger said the bust spanned three states and that one of the 39 people charged ordered fentanyl from Shanghai and had it delivered to Virginia through the mail.

"The last thing we want is for the U.S. Postal Service to become the nation's largest drug dealer," he added.

Hampton Police Chief Terry Sult said the case should serve as a warning to other dealers. "If you're out there, you're using firearms, you're dealing drugs and you're hurting people in our communities, this is the group of people that's coming after you," he said. "And we're relentless."

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard announced Thursday that the crew of Coast Guard Cutter Robert Ward has seized about 2,800 pounds of cocaine during their first drug patrol in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The cocaine was worth an estimated $38.5 million.

Terwilliger said that most fentanyl comes from Chinese labs. There's been an increased effort to hold China accountable for drugs like fentanyl that are manufactured there and smuggled to the U.S. A bipartisan bill in the Senate would sanction Chinese labs and traffickers that export the drug.

Video here.

Coast Guard seizes over 26,000 pounds of cocaine

Ezer Zuniga reports in the Daily Caller,

The U.S. Coast Guard seized over 26,000 pounds of cocaine worth more than $350 million from several drug busts throughout the Pacific Ocean, which it unloaded in San Diego Friday.

...“There has been a spike in cocaine production in South America,” Gautier told NBC San Diego. “Eighty percent of the cocaine that arrives in America starts its journey in the eastern Pacific.”

There is a video showing smugglers trying to get rid of the cocaine as their boat sped away from the Coast Guard. There is also a link to another video of a Coast Guard soldier leaping onto a narco sub. Read more here.

Big drug bust in Pueblo

PUEBLO, Colo. (KKTV) - Possibly the biggest drug bust in state history -- and it happened right here in southern Colorado.

Pueblo police announced Thursday the seizure of $8 million in heroin, 50 grams of cocaine, 2.5 pounds of meth, 35 firearms and $540,000 in cash.

"The one thing we don't tolerate in communities like this is the poison of heroin and the violence of illegal gun use and possession," said Acting United States Attorney for the District of Colorado Robert Troyer.

The police department called the heroin seizure "historic," and with good reason -- it could be the largest bust in Colorado history.

Police, flanked by the Colorado U.S. Attorney General's Office and the FBI Denver Division, announced the massive drug recovery and the five arrests that came along with it in a news conference late Thursday morning.

According to police, the heroin alone could be cut for 40,000 users, and the intent wasn't to sell to other cities but instead plague the streets of Pueblo with the drug.

Read more here.

Coke nails?

Why did Obama let his thumb and pointer finger grow long when he was a student at Occidental?

Bookworm has more here.

Flying high

No that's not the kind of snow at Dallas Fort Worth Airport being written about by Robert Wilonsky in the Dallas Morning News this morning.

Forty-six people, most from Dallas and Fort Worth, were arrested this morning in connection with a drug-distribution and money-laundering ring involving deliveries made by at least one person who works at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

...According to the feds, most of those named in the document are charged with at least one count of conspiring to distribute meth, heroin or cocaine. And: “Eight defendants are charged with at least one count of money laundering or conspiracy to commit money laundering.”

The indictment alleges that four of the 46 — 33-year-old Funaki “Noc” Falahola, 51-year-old Moniteveti “Vince” Katoa, 33-year-old Molitoni “Tony” Katoa and 40-year-old Janelle Isaacs — worked at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport or knew someone at the airport who could “bypass security” to make cocaine deliveries from here to “throughout the United States.” The indictment also accuses them of acting as “look outs … to bypass security measures” at the airport.

Read more here.