On January 12, 2024, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced that a 22-year-old named Jonathan Nicola was arrested. He had 15,000 fentanyl pills in his possession after leading officers on a high-speed chase in a stolen vehicle.
According to the report, Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) troopers saw Nicola driving a white Mercedes SUV.
He changed lanes unlawfully, cut off a marked State Patrol unit, and seemed to have illegal tint on the windows. When they checked the temporary tag attached to the vehicle, it didn’t match any registered vehicle.
Troopers tried to pull Nicola over, but he fled the scene, reaching speeds over 100 miles per hour, hitting another driver, and driving the wrong way on the road multiple times.
Eventually, he crashed when he failed to navigate a curve, and officers were able to arrest him. During a check of the vehicle, a digital scale and small baggies were found in the driver’s door pocket.
Further inspection by an FHP trooper and a K-9 led to the discovery of a large box with a clear vacuum-sealed bag containing 15,000 fentanyl pills designed to look like OxyContin. They also found a loaded 9-millimeter handgun and drug paraphernalia.
Upon verifying the vehicle information, it was confirmed that the car was stolen from Lee County, Florida, with a fake temporary tag and cloned VINs on both the door and the window.
“Despite the unabated flow of Fentanyl flowing into our nation through the open southern border, State Troopers wake up every day willingly putting themselves in high-risk situations like this, so that they can put evil people behind bars,” Executive Director Dave Kerner stated. “Despite the advantages the drug cartels reap from the open border, the Florida Highway Patrol will never back down from the mission Governor DeSantis has assigned us; keep our communities safe and fight back against the cartel driven devastation.”
