4 men in jail after Texas DPS, HPD bust drug lab at car rental business in northwest Houston
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Four men are in jail Tuesday evening on felony drug charges after a bust at an unassuming car rental business in northwest Houston.
It's called Speedy Slingshot Rentals.
Founded last year, the business advertises as Houston's premier slingshot and exotic vehicle rental experience.
"It was disguised as a business, but when it's closed seven days out of the week," neighbor Chris Salgado said. "So, what's there to say about that?"
SEE ORIGINAL REPORT: Heavy police activity can be seen as suspected 'fentanyl' lab raid underway in northwest Houston
Eyewitness News was first on the scene as investigators seized 17 pounds of fentanyl materials, 2.2 pounds of counterfeit Xanax pills with suspected fentanyl, a pound of counterfeit Adderall pills, four and a half pounds of cocaine, 44 pounds of marijuana, three pistols, a rifle, and a stolen car.
"The problem with that is that those pills can be made so well that the average user would have no idea what they got from a regular pharmacy and what was actually made at a place like this," Lt. Craig Cummings, with DPS's SE Region, said.
"These pills, once they leave a facility like this, can find themselves in the hands of a friend who thinks they have a legitimate pill and then hands that off to somebody else," Cummings said.
Fentanyl is usually added to other drugs because it's cheap and extremely potent.
But that high potency means it's deadly, even in tiny amounts. And most people who die from it didn't even know they were taking it.
According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, 97% of accidental opioid deaths in the state last year involved fentanyl.
That's up from 69% in 2018.
"They make them in a blender or a cement mixer, so there is no real dosing of the fentanyl that goes into a particular pill," Cummings said. "If you were to drop your saltshaker on the table, the amount of salt that comes out of that is probably a deadly fentanyl dose if you were to compare the two."
More charges are likely coming as investigators look into what they believe could be a complex, far-reaching drug-making operation.
Neighbors say undercover officers had been staking out the place for days.
"It's crazy. That's stuff you see on the news. It could be right next to you, right next to you, and you'd never know," Salgado said.
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