Lab: 13 pounds of white powder seized is sugar, not fentanyl

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina sheriff’s office thought it made a huge drug bust, seizing 13 pounds of fentanyl worth $2 million on the street. The powder was found in a home along with other drugs and paraphernalia. A field test indicated it was the powerful opioid, justifying a host of charges against three suspects.

Most of those charges soon evaporated when a state lab concluded that whatever the powder was, it wasn’t fentanyl.

The sheriff’s office then sent the powder to a private lab, and the results arrived this week. New Hanover Sheriff’s Lt. Jerry Brewer tells WECT-TV that the powder seized in July includes no illicit ingredients, and is nothing more than “a combination of simple and complex carbohydrates.” In other words, sugar, worth about $8 at the grocery store.