\u201cIt\u2019s definitely going to surpass last year,\u201d said Lisa Raville, the executive director of the Harm Reduction Action Center, an organization focused on preventing overdose deaths for people who inject and smoke drugs. \u201cWe’re losing a lot of people. We’re on the front lines of the worst overdose crisis we’ve ever been in.\u201d<\/p>\n
What happens after a seizure?<\/p>\n
In October, officials found and seized about 665,417 pills and 2.41 kilograms of fentanyl in Colorado under the national operation \u201cFentanyl Free America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities told the media the recent seizures saved countless lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery seizure makes an impact. The less poison that we’ve got on the streets, the safer our citizens are,\u201d Stoneberger said.<\/p>\n
But Raville said that in her experience working with the Denver community, those seizures don\u2019t result in fewer overdoses. She worries that reducing the supply results in people putting themselves in dangerous situations to get pills.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is incredibly concerning because when you arrest the supplier, then of course a new supplier comes in and continues to be unregulated,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DEA-meth-bust-AK.jpg\"\/)
Ava Kian\/CPR NewsImages shown at a press conference in November 2025 detailing how the methamphetamine was hidden in produce boxes.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of this is measured. None of this is official in production, not like any of the medicine you have produced that you take with confidence from that you get at a store where it’s a stabilized ingredient,\u201d said special agent James Stroop with the DEA at a press conference in November. \u201cEvery one of these pills that comes out does not contain the same amount of substance within each one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raville said fentanyl pills are often mixed with other substances, including xylazine \u2014 a sedative used for veterinary purposes \u2014 and nitazenes \u2014 a highly potent and addictive opioid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
David Olesky, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration\u2019s Rocky Mountain Field Division, said he thinks taking the drugs off the streets will save lives \u2014 the agencies present seized drugs as evidence in court proceedings and then incinerate them.<\/p>\n
Still, Olesky said, people will find other ways to bring them over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cartels will always adapt, so as we take off these record quantities of fentanyl, they’ll do different things, whether it’s in their transportation routes or where they decide to house and store their drugs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The CBI and DEA have identified two major cartels who are trafficking drugs into Colorado, and the interstate system brings them into the heart of Denver.<\/p>\n
Why is Colorado an epicenter for these busts?<\/p>\n
The traffickers heavily rely on two major interstates. Interstate 25, which runs north-south from Wyoming to New Mexico, and Interstate 70, which goes east-west from Maryland to Utah. Olesky said those routes are commonly used by the Mexican Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely see it coming up from the Texas border, Arizona, Southern California. With having I-25 corridor and the I-70, those are the key trafficking routes into the state,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/DEA-press-conference-with-officials.jpg\"\/)
Ava Kian\/CPR NewsThe Drug Enforcement Administration\u2019s Assistant Special Agent in Charge James Stroop demonstrates how a pill press produces pills during a press conference on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, at the Rocky Mountain Division Drug Enforcement Administration office.<\/p>\n
In early November, officials found 1.7 million fentanyl pills<\/a> and additional powder in a Highlands Ranch storage unit. A couple of weeks later, the CBI and La Junta Police Department found roughly 2,730 fentanyl pills during a search warrant connected to a narcotics investigation. A record-breaking amount<\/a> of methamphetamine was also seized in the state through a two-year investigation.<\/p>\n The pills are small and easy to conceal; for example, they can be packed into things like medication bottles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFentanyl in particular is highly abundant. It is mass-produced, and it is easily concealable, especially because it’s in pill form,\u201d Stoneberger said. \u201cHuge amounts of it that have been trafficked into Colorado in particular.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There have been positive markers of success in the fentanyl crisis, though, Olesky said. Nationally, the lethal dose in fentanyl pills is going down; with 29 percent of fentanyl pills analyzed in 2025 containing a potentially lethal dose, compared to 76 percent in 2023, according to the DEA.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows that we are having an impact globally on the supply chain of chemicals into Mexico,\u201d he said. \u201cThe potency is going down.\u201d<\/p>\n Pill prices have also increased, Olesky said.<\/p>\n But pills are fairly accessible. In metropolitan areas, pills may cost about 25 cents each, while in rural regions, the price can exceed $5, according to Stoneberger.<\/p>\n Raville doesn\u2019t think the price reduction will prevent overdoses.<\/p>\n \u201cDrugs sell themselves,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is honestly barely a blip.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado authorities have earned the spotlight in the last month, announcing a series of record-breaking drug busts after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,9045,3071,17152,1840,2605,11983,451,168600,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-333515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-colorado-news","tag-crime","tag-criminal-justice","tag-denver","tag-drugs","tag-fentanyl","tag-headlines","tag-methamphetamine","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}