That is, if you want to find your highly valuable, highly illegal goods still waiting for you when you get out of jail.
When the rent was found unpaid on a storage locker in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, the company did what self-storage companies do—just like on TV’s Storage Wars—they put the unseen contents up for auction.
That’s enough fentanyl to wipe out the entire populations of Los Angeles, Chicago and Austin combined.
But when the winning bidder popped the lock and stepped inside, he discovered the largest cache of fentanyl ever found in Colorado history—and the sixth‑largest ever in the United States.
Immediately, the good citizen called the cops.
The locker contained 198 kilos of deadly fentanyl in the form of 1.7 million counterfeit pills, along with 12 kilos of powdered fentanyl—enough to make up to an additional 6 million pills.
Pop one of those pills, expecting your usual dose of prescription drug, and there’s a good chance you can kiss yourself goodbye. Drug overdoses, largely driven by fentanyl, are the leading cause of death nationally for adults ages 18 to 44, and just two milligrams can be enough to kill you.
All told, an estimated 15 million milligrams of fentanyl were being stored in the locker.
You do the math.
Or, if you like, we can do it for you: That’s enough fentanyl to wipe out the entire populations of Los Angeles, Chicago and Austin combined.
The listed owner of the locker, with ties to the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, has been stuck in prison since April, causing the rent to lapse and the locker’s contents to be auctioned off.
“We now know that the storage locker belonged to a drug courier linked to this organization,” Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Armando Saldate said. “Once the courier was arrested, the storage unit bill went unpaid. CBI agents conducted search warrants and identified suspects in connection with this drug trafficking ring. The sheer volume of drugs found in this storage locker indicates a very sophisticated operation, likely producing millions more pills.”
Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly praised the man who won the auction for the locker and immediately notified police.
“I want to be clear that this citizen did exactly the right thing,” Weekly said. “Because of his actions, we were able to remove a significant amount of dangerous narcotics from circulation.”
For a bargain price, the man accidentally became the owner of a colossal cache of narcotics.
Deputy Daniel Carlin, public information officer for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, told Freedom: “Our narcotics team estimates that the drugs had a street value of $8 million—on the low end.”
Both Carlin and DEA spokesman Steffan Tubbs told Freedom they will not be releasing the names of the storage company or the man who placed the winning bid for fear of retribution from the Sinaloa Cartel.
You have to wonder how the courier who just lost $8 million worth of drugs will be viewed by his fellow Sinaloa monsters (it’s a safe bet they won’t be too happy with him).
“While there are countless captivating storylines that I don’t doubt will be generated by this fentanyl seizure from its record-breaking amount to a made-for-TV episode of Storage Wars, the bottom line is this seizure represents countless lives saved,” DEA Special Agent David Olesky said. “It is also indicative that the Mexican cartels continue to traffic significant quantities of fentanyl to Colorado. Had this fentanyl hit the streets … lives could have been lost.”
It was a very lucky break, and a major victory for law enforcement in their battle against the cartels.
“I want to thank the citizen who reported this discovery, the storage facility staff for their cooperation, and the deputies who responded quickly and professionally,” Sheriff Weekly said. “Let me send a strong and unmistakable message: Fentanyl and illegal narcotics will not be tolerated in Douglas County. Our deputies, detectives and crime lab professionals are committed to keeping this community safe, and we will remain relentless in that mission.”
