MIAMI VALLEY — The FBI said it tracked drugs from China to the Miami Valley.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 6:00, I-Team Lead Investigative Reporter John Bedell found some of the drugs federal prosecutors said they confiscated during the investigation are only approved for use in animals.
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One mother said she knows the painful impact of Fentanyl too well. She hopes this investigation may have saved some lives.
This Friday will mark eight months since Carol Jackson has been a mother without her son.
“My youngest son, Trenton Ladd, passed away January 5th this year, and he was on Fentanyl,” Jackson said.
Trenton was 25 years old.
“There’s always going to be a part of me that’s gone forever,” Jackson said.
She told the I-Team that her son isn’t the only loved one she’s lost like this.
“I’ve lost quite a few family members to Fentanyl,” Jackson said.
On Wednesday, the FBI’s director was in southwest Ohio to announce formal criminal charges in an international investigation.
Federal prosecutors said it involved money laundering and Fentanyl trafficking.
“It’s a major crisis, and I’m happy about what happened yesterday with the arrests,” Jackson said.
Federal prosecutors charged a Huber Heights couple, one other American, 22 Chinese nationals, and four Chinese companies accused of shipping Fentanyl and other drugs to the United States.
The FBI said the couple’s apartment in Huber Heights was a distribution hub.
Federal prosecutors said Eric Payne was mixing those other drugs in with Gentanyl to stretch the supply and increase the potency.
“Could effectively transform one kilogram of fentanyl into dozens of kilograms of fentanol mixture with the same potency,” U.S. Attorney, Southern District of Ohio Dominick Gerace said.
Federal investigators said some of those mixing agents were protonitazene and metonitazene.
A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) spokesperson said those are synthetic opioids like Fentanyl, and when combined with other drugs, the effects of each are exaggerated significantly. Overall, it increases the risk of an overdose and addiction.
The FBI said other mixing agents in their case included medetomidine and xylazine.
Those are only approved for use in veterinary medicine.
After losing people she’s loved to Fentanyl, Jackson said she hopes this investigation may have saved someone else’s loved one.
“I just don’t want any other parent to feel the way I felt,” Jackson said.
News Center 7’s John Bedell checked back with the FBI on Thursday, and they said the third American defendant they’re looking for, Ciandria Bryne Davis, is still not in custody.
News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.
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