June 27, 2022: Counterfeit pills with fentanyl continue unabated
This week: Stories about hundreds of thousands of counterfeit pills made with fentanyl in nine U.S. states.
Counterfeit pills across the country
In the Pacific West
Pills, fentanyl powder and guns seized in Riverside County, June 2022 (Riverside District Attorney's Office)
In California, the Riverside County Gang Impact Team seized about 40,000 M-30 pills made with fentanyl, five kilos of powdered fentanyl, and three firearms as part of an ongoing investigation.
California Highway Patrol officers found four kilos of fentanyl powder in a Fullerton man’s vehicle. A search of his home yielded another 20 kilos of powder and $250,000 worth of fentanyl pills.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers in Calexico, California seized 43 packages of fentanyl pills that weighed 54.85 pounds hidden in a vehicle’s gas tank.
Meanwhile, El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents in Salton City, California arrested two people after finding four kilograms of round blue pills that tested positive for fentanyl and two kilograms of heroin in their vehicle.
A 23-year-old in Sanger, California man was indicted for trying to mail 1,000 counterfeit oxycodone M30 tablets to a residence in Iowa.
In Hawai’i, police officer Justin Gaspar was honored by the Kona Crime Prevention Committee for disrupting a drug conspiracy that supplied counterfeit pills made with fentanyl to the island.
Police in Eugene, Oregon seized 1,900 counterfeit pills suspected to contain fentanyl and 350 grams of other illicit drugs when they searched a home on June 15.
In the Mountain West
Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Tucson, Arizona seized 350,000 fentanyl pills.
Police in Ward County, North Dakota arrested a Flushing, Michigan resident and seized 15,000 fentanyl pills and 80 grams of fentanyl powder after searching a storage garage.
In the South
A Nashville, Tennessee man was charged with second-degree murder for allegedly supplying the counterfeit pills made with fentanyl that 44-year-old Stacy Lee Henson took just before his fatal car crash in June 2021.
In the Midwest
A 21-year-old Lawrence, Kansas woman was charged for allegedly providing the counterfeit oxycodone pill made of fentanyl that killed her boyfriend, Kendall Royce Stiffler.
Police in Garden City, Kansas arrested a man for suspected drug distribution after seizing more than 600 fentanyl pills and almost 18 grams of other illicit drugs from his apartment.
44-year-old Thomas Carodine of Omaha, Nebraska received a 38-month prison sentence for distributing a “large number” of fentanyl pills. He sold an informant 574 pills over three meetings in 2020.
In Wisconsin, Michelle Kullmann is working with other moms to make naloxone readily available in schools and public buildings across the state. Kullman’s son, Cade Reddington, died of fentanyl poisoning in his dorm room after he took a counterfeit Percocet pill.
Get a broader view of counterfeit incidents in Kansas, or in your own state.