DENVER — The Rocky Mountain division of the Drug Enforcement Agency seized over a half million fake Fentanyl pills in one week.
Between June 7 and June 14, the agency said they seized around 570,000 fake Fentanyl pills. That one-week total represents roughly 22% of all Fentanyl of pill seizures in Colorado in 2023, according to the Rocky Mountain DEA.
2023 was already a record year for the agency as 2.61 million Fentanyl pills were seized.
“The total number of pills seized so far this month proves the Mexican drug cartels are not slowing down production and distribution of this poison as we head into the summer months,” DEA RMFD Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Pullen said. “Every day the men and women of DEA and our partner agencies are working hard to get fake fentanyl pills of the streets.”
The operation intercepted three shipments of pills in Colorado during the bust. At the beginning of June, the agency was encouraging parents to talk with their children about the dangers of Fentanyl as students got out for summer break.
In May, a documentary highlighting the ongoing Fentanyl crisis premiered in Colorado highlighting the dangers and speaking with people who have become addicted to or lost loved ones because of the drug.
In 2023, there were over 1,200 drug overdose deaths from Fentanyl, 59% of which resulted from illegally manufactured Fentanyl, a new Common Sense Institute study found.
The Common Sense Institute describes itself as a non-partisan research organization.
It found opioid-based drug overdose deaths are 72.3% of all drug overdose deaths in Colorado, a 30.3% increase from 2020.
The Common Sense Institute will host a panel discussion on June 27 to examine the Fentanyl issue with research and experts from Colorado, Arizona, Iowa and Oregon.