Mexico city: Mexican soldiers seized more than 500,000 fentanyl pills during a raid on what the army described as the largest synthetic drug lab discovered to date on Wednesday.

According to the army, the outdoor laboratory was discovered in Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa. Sinaloa is home to the Sinaloa drug cartel.

Soldiers raided the lab on Tuesday and discovered nearly 630,000 pills containing the synthetic opioid fentanyl. They also claimed to have seized 282 pounds (128 kilogrammes) of powdered fentanyl and approximately 220 pounds (100 kilogrammes) of suspected methamphetamines.

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This is the highest-capacity synthetic drug production lab on record during this administration, according to the army.

Mexican drug cartels manufacture the opioid from precursor chemicals shipped from China, then press it into pills impersonating Xanax, Percocet, or Oxycodone. People frequently take the pills without realising they contain fentanyl, resulting in fatal overdoses.

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The arrest occurred on the same day that the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the massive number of fentanyl overdoses that occur in the United States each year, which is currently estimated to be around 70,000.

Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, chaired the committee and urged Mexico to do more.

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"This means asking Mexico to do more to disrupt criminal organisations producing and trafficking fentanyl, which will be difficult given a politicised judiciary and incidents of Mexican security forces colluding with drug cartels," he said.