The fentanyl crisis in North Texas continues to grow as criminal networks bring mountains of pills into the region, with only one single two-milligram dose being enough to cause death.
Fentanyl is an incredibly potent substance used in the medical field to treat pain and anesthetize, per the DEA. It is highly addictive and produces effects that are approximately 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times stronger than heroin.
In North Texas, the fentanyl-laced pills peddled by criminals are typically blue and labeled “M30” to mimic real oxycodone pills, per WFAA.
Oxycodone is a pharmaceutical narcotic that produces euphoric effects that can be habit-forming when taken regularly, per the DEA.
Due to the prevalence of abusive use of oxycodone, these counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl carry a great risk to those who take them.
As The Dallas Express recently reported, drugs are sometimes even disguised as candy. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seized roughly $900,000 worth of methamphetamine in candy wrappers and cans at the Hidalgo International Bridge on April 20.
The DEA sees attempts like these as strategies of drug dealers to appeal to youths, as a press release alerting the public about rainbow-colored fentanyl pills explained.
Recently, more than 10 students in a Dallas-Fort Worth school district overdosed on fentanyl last September. While three of them died, the news of the tragedy wasn’t enough to prevent it from reoccurring.
As The Dallas Express reported, the second apparent fentanyl overdose of a local student in the past several weeks occurred earlier this month. The student was revived by Narcan.
The DEA confiscated approximately 11 million deadly doses of fentanyl in Dallas-Fort Worth in 2022.
In an interview with WFAA, Eduardo Chavez, who is the special agent in charge, demonstrated the lethal effect of the substance using a sugar packet.
“A sugar packet has enough deadly doses for 500 people,” Chavez explained, per WFAA.
And yet it is dangerous enough for Chavez to refer to it as “by far North Texas’ deadliest threat,” per WFAA.
The DEA has been investigating fentanyl trafficking networks.
Raw fentanyl powder is produced in China, where the powder is produced and sold to Mexican drug cartels. The cartels then use the powder to press it into pills, which are then distributed in the United States.
Chavez explained that sometimes this happens closer to home.
“Even in the last six months, we have seized pill press operations here in the DFW area, where they are pressing fentanyl in their garages,” Chavez told WFAA. Back in November 2019, the DEA raided a storage shed in Plano belonging to Rafael Galindo Gallegos and found ledgers logging the distribution of hundreds of kilos of narcotics in DFW and elsewhere to the tune of $5.7 million, per WFAA. Gallegos was allegedly one of “El Chapo’s” top suppliers.
The federal authorities believe that the Sinaloa cartel remains the most significant distributor of fentanyl in the United States, despite El Chapo being behind bars.
Competition for gaining an edge in the lucrative business of drugs has fed cartel violence, which has spilled into the United States as well.
“I will say when you have drug trafficking in your area, you have violence. It goes hand in hand,” Chad Yarbrough, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas office, told WFAA.
In Dallas, there have been 3,404 drug-related offenses committed since the start of the year. This represents a year-over-year increase of over 11%, per the city’s crime analytics dashboard.