King County sheriff's detectives scored the agency's largest-ever individual fentanyl powder bust last week when they intercepted a suspected large-scale drug trafficker after watching him receive a shipment in Seattle's Industrial District, according to prosecutors.
Bruno Moreno Camacho, 27, was arrested Oct. 27 after investigators pulled him over on an Interstate 5 exit ramp and found more than 95 pounds of methamphetamine and nearly 42 pounds of fentanyl powder in his car, charging papers say. The combined street value of the drugs is an estimated $2.6 million.
The 41.8 pounds of fentanyl seized from Moreno "has the potential to kill 10 million people," Senior Deputy Prosecutor Candice Duclos noted in charging documents filed Tuesday, citing calculations by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Moreno's arrest comes nearly a year after the same detectives — some of them assigned to the Burien Police Department, which contracts with the Sheriff's Office for police services — seized 25 pounds of fentanyl powder, 500,000 fentanyl pills, 400 pounds of meth and 31 pounds of heroin in a series of drug busts. That operation involved multiple seizures, led to the arrests of six men and took an estimated $10 million worth of drugs off the streets.
At the time, it was believed to be among the largest combined hauls of street drugs in the Sheriff's Office's 170-year history.
Moreno, of Sinaloa, Mexico, is facing two counts of violating the Uniform Controlled Substances Act and one count of conspiring to violate the same statute. Prosecutors further claim that his alleged trafficking activity is worse than typical trafficking offenses because of the amounts of drugs involved. If proven, that aggravating factor could land Moreno an exceptional sentence, should he be convicted.
He remains jailed in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin, is made in clandestine labs operated by Mexican drug cartels and is smuggled across the U.S. border for distribution in West Coast cities. Most of the fentanyl arriving in King County is pressed into pills, but officials have seen an increase in the smuggling of fentanyl powder over the past year.
The illicit drug is cheap to produce and sells on the streets for $3 or $4 a pill, making it readily accessible. And because fentanyl's high lasts only 20 minutes or so, people addicted to the drug may need 30 or more hits a day, leaving them oscillating between intense cravings and euphoria.
King County has seen an alarming spike in fentanyl-related overdose deaths since 2020, when 168 people died after ingesting the drug, according to data from Public Health — Seattle & King County.
The number of fentanyl-related overdose deaths more than doubled to 385 in 2021, then nearly doubled again to 714 deaths last year, the data show. With two months left in 2023, 893 people already have died this year from fentanyl-related overdoses.
Meth-related overdose deaths are also on the rise — and the synthetic stimulant, which is also manufactured and brought into the country by Mexican drug cartels, is the drug most commonly found in combination with fentanyl, according to public health officials. So far this year, meth has been involved in 598 overdose deaths, up from 533 deaths in all of 2022.
The investigation into Moreno began in September when detectives learned about him from a confidential informant who's previously "been involved with various large drug-trafficking organizations" and is working with detectives in exchange for consideration of the informant's own pending criminal charges, the charges against Moreno say.
The detectives used the informant to orchestrate a controlled drug purchase from Moreno in October, according to charging documents.
A King County Superior Court judge also approved a warrant on Oct. 13 that allowed detectives to install a GPS tracker on Moreno's gold Toyota Camry. The tracker data, in tandem with other surveillance on Moreno, showed he "left at random hours of the day" and made a series of "short stops" in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties that were "highly indicative of drug trafficking," the charges say.
The next week, detectives watched as Moreno loaded up his car with several heavy-looking trash bags near First Avenue South and South Spokane Street and later moved at least two of the bags into another man's vehicle in Pierce County, according to the charges.
The man who met with Moreno immediately drove to a parking lot and met with a third man, who loaded one of the trash bags into his SUV, the charges say. Detectives pulled the SUV over and seized 44.3 pounds of meth from a bag found on the back seat.
Detectives continued to conduct surveillance on Moreno for another week and saw that he continued to "move large bags and other packages" from his Renton apartment, the charges say.
Then on Oct. 27, detectives again tracked Moreno to Seattle's Industrial District, where they saw him meet two other men in a semitruck and trailer and load a large plastic tote and other items into his Camry, charging papers say.
The detectives "recognized that this was clearly a resupply of drugs," say the charges, which note that in previous investigations, drug-trafficking organizations have used semitruck drivers to move shipments of narcotics into King County.
The detectives pulled over Moreno as he drove away from the meetup, stopping him on an exit ramp from southbound I-5, the charges say. A drug-sniffing police dog "alerted" to the odor of drugs in his Camry, leading to the seizure of the meth and fentanyl powder, according to charging papers.
Though Moreno initially told detectives he was a roofer, he later admitted to trafficking drugs for his boss in Mexico, and photos found on his phone showed "large amounts of drugs, appearing similar to large resupplies like the one we saw him receive," the charges say. The phone also contained photos of "bulk cash" and a ledger detailing payments from specific individuals, each in the tens of thousands of dollars, according to charging papers.
