DEA warns of dangerous counterfeit pills

By Meghan Packer

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    ATLANTA (WGCL) — The Drug Enforcement Administration is warning about a sharp increase in potentially deadly counterfeit pills made to look like authentic prescription medication.

The DEA carried out a two month operation nationwide, including in Atlanta, aimed at cracking down on the pills that often contain the potentially deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl.

The opearation seized more than 1.8 million pills across the U.S.

Rob Murphy, special agent in charge of the DEA Atlanta office, showed CBS46 bags of drugs recently seized at different locations in metro Atlanta, including cocaine, methamphetamine, counterfeit pills with fentanyl, along with guns and a pill press used to make the pills.

“This represents death right here,” said Murphy. “Several individuals would have died on this.”

He said Mexican drug cartels are getting fentanyl shipped from China and processing the pills before distributing them throughout the United States. They’re made to look exactly like Percocet, Xanax, Oxycontin and other medications. Murphy said the fentanyl is cheap for the cartels but potentially dangerous for the people taking what they think are legitimate medications.

“We’ve got to wake up as a country, we’ve got to make sure this is not acceptable,” he said.

The DEA said a few years ago about ten percent of drugs they were testing in their lab contained fentanyl. That’s now up to 40 percent.

Murphy said the victims can be high school or college-aged people who think they’re trying a pill from someone’s medicine cabinet but it has deadly consequences.

“This is way worse that Russian roulette, this is just, it’s scary. Anyone who has children should be scared,” said Murphy.

DEA officials said the pills are sold on the street, the dark web and even on social media.

A record number of Americans died from overdoses in 2020 – more than 93,000, according to statistics from the federal government.

Murphy said, “It’s a tragic thing. We can’t stand for this as a society.”

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