(VitalNews.org) – A 25-year-old from South Carolina has been arrested and charged with multiple offences, including trafficking fentanyl and possessing a weapon during the commission of a crime, after a surveillance operation revealed her alleged trade in narcotics. 25-year-old Katelin Lee Abernathy was being monitored by authorities as they suspected her of illicit activities. She was already well-known to the police and had been arrested three times in the previous year over narcotics-related offences.
The surveillance operation led to police stopping Abernathy as she drove through the Spartanburg area of Boiling Springs on August 24. The police K-9 alerted its handlers to a potential narcotics find, and a search for the drugs was carried out, resulting in the discovery of a Glock handgun, an SKS rifle, 20 grams of meth amphetamine, and an incredible 941 grams of fentanyl. The fruitful traffic stop led to police obtaining a search warrant for the Spartanburg resident’s nearby storage unit where they were able to recover three more handguns, four long firearms, and a whopping 531 grams of fentanyl.
The illegal drug fentanyl is known to be incredibly dangerous and is known to have killed at least 107,000 people in the USA between August 2021 and August 2022. According to the Drugs Enforcement Agency, the huge fentanyl haul allegedly found in Abernathy’s possession would be enough to kill a staggering 736,000 people.
Katelin Abernathy has been held in Spartanburg Detention Center without any hope of bail as she awaits her trial following the multi-agency surveillance operation that resulted in her arrest. The collaborative effort involved investigators working together from the local Sherriff’s Office, the state’s Law Enforcement Division and the Spartanburg County ICE team, amongst others.
This arrest is one part of a nationwide battle against a drug deemed 50 times more powerful than heroin, with the DEA recently reporting that an amount equivalent to approximately 204 million fatal doses of fentanyl have been taken off the street so far in 2023.
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