North Carolinians Arrested With 900 Suspected Counterfeit Fentanyl Pills

Click here to read more about the U.S.’s counterfeit fentanyl pill crisis.

The Mt. Airy News reported on the arrest of a Mt. Airy, North Carolina couple after a police search of their home turned up a large quantity of drugs with a street value of over $430,000. Included in the haul were 900 opioid pills that the police suspect are counterfeit. David Worth Steele was charged with six felonies and Lisa Johnson Wolford was charged with four.

Sheriff Jimmy Combs held up an evidence bag holding the pills and said, “Through our investigation we believe these pills are counterfeit 30mg Roxys or Roxicodone believed to be laced with fentanyl. These pills match other pills we have recovered from undercover purchases that tested positive as fentanyl in a laboratory by the Department of Homeland Security. We have also recovered matching pills from victims that had overdosed on opioids.”

The Mt. Airy News stated that this was not the first time police had searched this home in the past two years, nor the first time that drugs had been found there. In 2016, police seized one kilogram of methamphetamine and a search just before Christmas in 2017 turned up drugs, cash, and multiple firearms.

Sheriff Combs credited the partnership between the Mount Airy Police Department and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation for the successful result of this investigation. “For the last 13 months this has been a model partnership at every level,” Combs said. “We have truly been blessed with the things this team has accomplished.”