Fontana Woman Gets 3 Years In Prison For Selling Elephant Tranquilizer

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – A 50-year-old Fontana woman was sentenced Monday to three years in federal prison for being part of a drug ring which sold a powerful drug which is used to sedate elephants.

Alejandra Romero-Agredano, 50, plead guilty in January in L.A. federal court to one count of distribution of more than 100 grams of carfentanil, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Carfentanil, a synthetic opioid , is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 times more potent than morphine, prosecutors say. Fentanyl itself is about 50 times more powerful than heroin. Back in 2016, the DEA issued a warning regarding a spike in carfentanil use. Carfentanil is used to sedate elephants and other large animals.

Romero-Agredano was in a drug ring with two men that sold more than 26,000 carfentanil pills to undercover DEA agents, the DA's office reports.

Romero and two of her co-defendants – 28-year-old Jorge Marin and 33-year-old Jose Jesus Camacho-Martinez -- were arrested by DEA agents in September 2018.

Martin has since been sentenced to four years in prison and Camacho-Martinez received five years after both also plead guilty.