A man and a woman are facing federal drug charges after being apprehended in an El Paso hotel room for allegedly attempting to flush fentanyl pills down the toilet.
According to a criminal complaint filed on January 23 in U.S. District Court in El Paso, FBI special agents arrested Christina Alvarez and Frankie Santos while serving a search warrant at a hotel on Gateway Boulevard East.
The agents knocked on the door, but no one responded. They walked in nevertheless and allegedly saw Santos standing in front of the toilet, attempting to dump an unknown number of fentanyl pills.
According to the complaint, agents found Alvarez in the hotel room with more than 5 ounces of fentanyl pills and methamphetamine, a loaded Smith & Wesson 9mm semi-automatic gun, and a Keltec P32 .32-caliber pistol.
In a post-arrest interview with Drug Enforcement Administration officials, Santos allegedly admitted to distributing fentanyl and meth in El Paso for the previous two years. According to the complaint, he obtains the drugs from two guys in Mexico whom he only identifies as “Junior” and “Chapo” and sells narcotics to up to ten consumers.
Santos claimed to supply his customers with between five and 1,000 fentanyl tablets and that he and Alvarez handle the sales from their hotel room.
Alvarez declined to speak with the DEA about the narcotics and requested to consult an attorney.
The two were supposed to appear at a detention hearing on Wednesday.
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