Law enforcement agents seized more than 720,000 fentanyl pills during a recent investigative traffic stop in Alpine, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday.
The attorney general said the “massive bust” was the largest of its kind since the California Department of Justice’s Fentanyl Enforcement Program began partnering last year with a federal task force focused on fentanyl trafficking in San Diego County and along the California-Mexico border.
Law enforcement agents seized more than 150 pounds of fentanyl pills Friday from a vehicle in Alpine.
(California Attorney General’s Office)
Like much of the nation, San Diego County has been grappling with skyrocketing rates of overdoses and deaths attributed to the powerful synthetic opioid, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, 100 times stronger than morphine and can be lethal in tiny doses. Fentanyl killed 815 people in 2022 in San Diego County — a 785-percent increase from the 92 people killed by the drug in 2018.
“I am grateful for the work of our special agents and law enforcement partners in getting these illicit and dangerous drugs off our streets,” Bonta said in a statement.
The seizure occurred Friday in Alpine and resulted in the arrest of a 31-year-old man who was due to be arraigned Wednesday in San Diego Superior Court. According to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday, he faced a felony charge of drug transportation for sale with special-circumstance allegations involving the high quantity of drugs and the apparent sophistication of the crime.
It was not immediately clear Wednesday if the defendant, who remained jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail, had an attorney who could comment on his behalf.
Authorities released no details about what led up to the large seizure, but said “an investigation determined that the individual was driving a vehicle containing a large quantity of fentanyl.”
Agents searching the car found 110 packages weighing a combined total of more than 158 pounds. The packages contained blue pills with “M” and “30” stamped on them.
Legitimate versions of such pills, commonly known as “M-30s” or “blues,” contain 30 mg of the synthetic opioid oxycodone hydrochloride, but counterfeit versions are often laced with fentanyl.
Friday’s seizure was part of an operation by the Fentanyl Abatement and Suppression Team, a task force known by the acronym FAST and led by Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of U.S. Department of Homeland Security. FAST is made up of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and works closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California.
Special agents from California’s DOJ joined the FAST task force last October. Bonta’s office said Friday’s seizure also involved Border Patrol agents and deputies from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
Late last month, Bonta’s office announced its involvement in the arrest of three suspected traffickers accused of bringing 30,000 fentanyl pills across the Mexico border into neighboring Imperial County. Between April 2022 and October 2023, the California DOJ was involved in the seizure of roughly 9.35 million fentanyl pills and more than 1,210 pounds of fentanyl powder.
