On Tuesday, Shantel Robinson looked directly into the hidden camera installed in her Oak Lawn apartment complex during a drug investigation, authorities say.
She and her boyfriend disconnected it.
On Wednesday, investigators raided her apartment, where they say they discovered a clandestine laboratory used to package illegal drugs.
The operation led to the recovery of 25 guns, more than 15 pounds of fentanyl and almost 2 pounds of cocaine — along with a box of devices known as “switches” that convert Glock handguns into machine guns, according to an affidavit by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
The investigation included searches of a storage unit in Alsip and a house in Frankfort where Robinson’s boyfriend James Howard was living.
Robinson, 31, and Howard, 32, were charged Friday with distributing a controlled substance.
In May, Allen Dean, 32, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Cook County criminal court for operating a South Side lab that pressed fentanyl and methamphetamine into pills designed to look like prescription drugs. More than $1.2 million of drugs were found.
Cracking down on deadly fentanyl is one of President Donald Trump’s priorities, with his administration threatening higher tariffs to force Mexico, China and Canada to do more to stop the flow of the drug to the United States.
In 2024, the Cook County medical examiner’s office reported opioids were responsible for more than 1,000 deaths countywide, mostly from combinations of fentanyl and drugs like heroin.
