A woman was arrested in Oklahoma for allegedly transporting millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs across the state.
According to a press release from the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, 29-year-old Jamara Hendratta Hennings was pulled over on Feb. 22 after an Oklahoma City deputy saw she was swerving in a van on I-35. Hennings told the deputy she was driving home to Arizona after visiting friends. However, she couldn’t supply her friends’ names or where she lived in Phoenix.
“Hennings said her friends let her borrow the van to let her drive home because she didn’t have enough money for a plane,” OKC Sheriff Tommie Johnson III told KOTV-DT. “The deputy asked to search the van after hearing the story and everything not lining up.”
When she wouldn’t let the deputy search her van, a drug K-9 arrived at the scene to sniff the van, ultimately finding a duffle bag carrying $75,000 worth of fentanyl pills, per a police statement. There were also 12 plastic containers and eight cellophane-wrapped bundles of 23.5 pounds of crystal meth and 2.5 pounds of pre-cut cocaine. Altogether, the total value was over $3.3 million.
“Oklahoma City is a major route for drug traffickers with I-40 and I-35 running right through the heart of the city. It always has been,” Johnson III said in the statement. “But lately we’ve seen a dramatic increase in fentanyl trafficking through the county. It’s cheap. It’s easy to conceal. And it’s very powerful. But it’s also deadly.”
“Much of it is produced in Mexico by people working for the cartel,” the sheriff continued. “They press it into pill form, luring people believing it’s safe when it really isn’t. Some pills have enough fentanyl to get you high, others have deadly amounts. Every time you take one of these pills, you’re playing Russian roulette.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has Hennings in custody and is seeking federal charges.
