ATLANTA — Atlanta’s streets are a little safer thanks to a pair of huge drug busts.

Atlanta police narcotics Lt. Robert Albertini said the first bust at an apartment on Mecaslin Street NW turned up a long list of different drugs and three guns.

But it was the second bust that turned up the most definitive link to fentanyl.

A cleaning crew at a Residence Inn at 2960 Piedmont Round found a black bag in an oven and the hotel called the police. Investigators found 1.4 pounds of powder that field tested positive for the deadly drug, which was discovered along with more than 10 pounds of methamphetamine -- enough for thousands of individual doses.

Albertini said 1.4 pounds of fentanyl would be enough for more than 300,000 overdoses, and while it is unlikely that many would have occurred had the drug hit the street, he believes fast action by the hotel and Atlanta police has likely saved many lives.

“You potentially prevented a lot of dying that day?” Winne asked Albertini.

“Well Mark, we prevented numerous overdoses and these overdoses do lead to death, so yes, I do believe we prevented quite a few deaths that day on the seizure,” Albertini said.

The lieutenant said Ernest Floyd Wright now faces fentanyl and meth charges.

Defense attorney Manny Arora said when Wright booked the room in his own name, which Arora said a drug dealer would not typically do, Wright asked to have the room cleaned because of its condition and because someone else’s belongings were there.

When he came back the next day with his wife and child, Wright was arrested.

Arora maintained the drugs were not Wright’s and the drugs have yet to be tested in a lab and confirmed to be meth and fentanyl.

Albertini said the bust on Mecaslin Street following a long investigation that started with a Crime Stoppers Atlanta tip, turned up, among many other kinds of drugs, bottles of prescription promethazine, most likely to have come from burglary at one or more pharmacies.

“We have sent that information to the DEA for them to track the number,” Albertini said.

Illegal psilocybin mushrooms, along with pounds of chocolate bars believed laced with psilocybin and maybe 200 or so pills stamped M30, and while those haven’t been tested yet, he said APD has been finding many pills on the street similar in appearance to be counterfeit oxycodone containing fentanyl, posing a danger to users who think they’re taking one thing but who end up taking another.

“We are seeing a huge increase in mushrooms this year,” Albertini said. “The danger of fentanyl-laced pills is two milligrams is considered a fatal dose. That basically comes out to a few grains of salt.”

Albertini said Ariquize Swain and Lashala Baldwin each face a variety of charges.

Defense attorney Rene Rockwell said Swain is innocent and will fight the charges. She said he has not been charged with fentanyl at this point and he will comply with the conditions of his bond.

By phone, a woman who identified herself as Baldwin told Winne that she was at an apartment to pay some money to someone she owed, and police showed up.

She said she had no connection to any drugs or guns and had never been arrested before.

Albertini said Baldwin’s presence there was a surprise, and she does have a clean record.

He said among the other drugs in that apartment were suspected MDMA, hash, meth, hydrocodone, oxycodone and other prescription pills, cocaine, and more than $96,000.