Man arrested after Uber ride with pound of fentanyl, police say
Dec 4, 2024, 3:39 PM | Updated: 3:39 pm
FILE - Seized fentanyl pills are displayed during a press conference about the dangers and increase in fentanyl at the Drug Enforcement Administration Salt Lake City District Office in Salt Lake City on Thursday. The pills are marked to look like authentic pharmaceutical drugs but are fake and can be deadly. (Photo: Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
(Photo: Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — A man is in custody after attempting to flee an investigation in an Uber with a pound of fentanyl, police said.
A probable cause statement for the incident named Luis Eduardo Soto Elenes as the suspect in the Salt Lake City drug trafficking investigation. The statement said DEA agents located Elenes at a hotel near the Salt Lake City International Airport. The agents followed him and two others when they got into a car, then performed a traffic stop.
Elenes was driving the car, but didn’t have a license, the statement said. Police searched the car and didn’t find any drugs, but did find “multiple receipts, one from just before the stop, indicating money that was sent to Arizona and to Mexico,” the statement said.
The agents let the three men go since nothing else was found in the car, according to police. However, the agents were able to get a warrant to search the men’s hotel room. When officers got there to serve the warrant, they saw the three men again, this time getting into an unknown vehicle that turned out to be an Uber.
“The vehicle was stopped and subjects were taken and detained,” the statement said. “Approximately one pound of suspected raw fentanyl powder was located and approximately 20,000 blue m30 pills suspected to also contain fentanyl.”
Police believed the men were either trying to relocate to another hotel or prepare to flee the state. Police then searched their room and found more powder and pills that the men left behind, the statement said.
The three men reportedly told police that they had no knowledge of the drugs in their possession.
“The suspect has been distributing fentanyl powder and fentanyl pills in the Salt Lake Valley without regard to the harm they are causing and preying on those with addiction,” the statement said.
Elenes is booked in the Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of two felony counts of drug possession with intent to distribute and one misdemeanor count of drug paraphernalia. In the statement, police argued that Elenes should not be released because he is “highly likely to flee the state or flee the country to escape prosecution.”
