A ‘devastating’ tally: Utah breaks annual record for fentanyl seizures in just 6 months

Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division, holds a bag of fentanyl that agents recently seized at the DEA's Salt Lake City office on Thursday, July 25, 2025. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch)

It only took six months for law enforcement to break Utah’s annual record for fentanyl seizures this year as the state copes with what the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration calls “the most dangerous drug crisis the nation has ever faced.”

In 2023, the DEA and its local partners, which includes the Salt Lake County Sheriff, Salt Lake Police and Highway Patrol, seized 664,200 fentanyl pills, setting the single-year record.

By June of this year that record was shattered, with the agency reporting over 774,000 pills seized. That number continues to climb.

“It’s an unfortunate record to set, especially considering it took only a half-year to get there,” said Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Pullen spoke to reporters at the DEA’s office in Salt Lake City on Thursday, standing in front of a table piled with around 240,000 fentanyl pills, bags of heroin and methamphetamine, and a rifle, shotgun and handgun — all the result of recent seizures.

The pills end up in Utah by way of a global, black market supply chain that starts in eastern Asia, according to the DEA. The raw materials, powder, pill presses, stamps and more are mostly shipped from China, sometimes India, to Mexico. There, criminal groups manufacture the pills and smuggle them into the U.S. Nearly 90% of fentanyl seizures at the border happen at legal ports of entry and about 85% of convicted smugglers are U.S. citizens, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection .

In Utah, it’s mostly the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation, or CJNG, cartels that control the fentanyl trade, Pullen said. Interstates 15 and 80 put Salt Lake City at the crossroads of the western drug trade, and much of the seizures this year were in the corridor between St. George and Salt Lake City.

DEA forecasts a record-breaking year for fentanyl seizures in Utah

“You’re going to see a lot coming up out of (Los Angeles) up I-15 into Utah. That’s a big pathway for the Sinaloa Cartel; they control the pathway into southern California,” Pullen said.

In Utah, that trade route is incredibly profitable. The DEA estimates that each pill costs around two to four cents to manufacture — in Salt Lake City, they sell for about $5 to $6 and the further north, the higher the price. In Montana, the agency says a single pill can sell for as much as $60.

So, depending on the trafficker’s final destination, the plastic bags of fentanyl piled high on the DEA’s table in Salt Lake City on Thursday was worth anywhere from $1.2 million to over $10 million on the black market.

“It’s an incredible profit,” Pullen said.

On Tuesday, a drug trafficking ringleader was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin along the Wasatch Front. In 2021, 55-year-old Joe Robert Rael and 25 of his accomplices operating as the Nortenos Gang were charged and according to court documents, 420 pounds of methamphetamine and 50 pounds of heroin flowed into Utah in a single year under their watch

A complaint filed in federal court suggests Rael and his accomplices were sourcing their drugs directly from the CJNG in Mexico.

U.S. Attorney for Utah Trina Higgins, whose office prosecuted Rael, said her attorneys are currently working a separate case that involved a single seizure of over 200,000 fentanyl pills.

“If 70% of those pills likely contain a lethal dose of fentanyl, and we’re picking up over 200,000 in just one case, the amount of damage and destruction to our communities is staggering,” she said.

Most of the fentanyl in Utah is in blue pill form, often made to imitate legal pharmaceutical drugs. The pills on display at the DEA’s Salt Lake City office Thursday were stamped with a counterfeit “MERCK” logo, the pharmaceutical giant that manufactures opioids.

That makes an already dangerous drug even more lethal. Injecting, snorting or smoking hard drugs is often seen as an act of desperation, reserved for those struggling with addition, Pullen said. But taking a pill is much more socially acceptable.

That puts people of every race, age or socioeconomic class at risk of a fatal overdose. It could be a teenager struggling with an injury who thinks they’re taking a legitimate pharmaceutical product, or a college student trying to get a different recreational drug that turns out to be fentanyl.

Sometimes drug dealers will advertise oxycontin, percocet, xanax or other painkillers. But as Pullen warned, “they’re all fake and all almost certainly contain fentanyl.”

That’s led to drug overdoses becoming the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 to 45 years old, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The DEA says fentanyl accounts for about 70% of those fatal overdoses.

Social media has facilitated the drug trade, with what seems like every popular app — Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter or YouTube — used by drug dealers to advertise and coordinate pickups.

Often, it’s as simple as going to the mall and messaging someone on Snapchat.

“They’re incredibly easy to get, you don’t have to go to some rough neighborhood to pick up these pills. You can get them anywhere,” Pullen said.

Just two milligrams of fentanyl could kill someone who doesn’t have an opioid tolerance. But the drug is so potent that Pullen said it kills people who have struggled with addiction for years. He likened it to cooking a batch of chocolate chip cookies — sometimes the cookies have 10 chocolate chips in them, sometimes just one.

“If you’re taking one of these pills, you’re risking your life,” said Pullen.

The clandestine pill press operations in rural Mexico follow an imperfect science, sometimes resulting in pills of varying strength. A mistake could result in a single pill strong enough to kill multiple people, regardless of their tolerance.

“They’re not made in a pharmaceutical lab,” Pullen said. “As soon as you take it, even a hardcore user, they’re going to die on the spot.”

Utah governor: ‘We still have a long way to go’

Last week during his monthly PBS Utah news conference, Gov. Spencer Cox said he put together an “informal task force” this summer to discuss the issue. But, the governor admitted, “we still have a long way to go on this one. I wish I had better answers.”

“We are putting more money into the law enforcement piece but also into helping people recover, the addiction side, and hopefully preventing addiction from happening in the first place,” Cox said. “Part of the problem is it’s more than just access to drugs or the drugs themselves, it’s the loneliness epidemic that’s happening in our country. As people lose community and they feel unmoored, the same problem we’re seeing with social media, all of this is resulting in a very unhealthy culture where people are trying to numb their feelings of isolation and loneliness and rejection and looking for it in unhealthy places.”

Law enforcement would need over $2.7 million this year to police and clean up new Fairpark District

Cox pointed to opioid settlements coming into the state — companies like Teva, Allergan, CVS and Walgreens are set to pay Utah $209 million over the next 15 years for their role in the opioid crisis, while the health care marketing and communications company Publicis Health will pay the state an additional $4 million. There are millions more in settlement funds likely headed to the state, with payouts from other companies, including the Sackler family’s infamous Purdue Pharma, still pending.

Per the lawsuits, that money has to be spent on preventative measures, like buying the overdose reversing drug naloxone, launching public health campaigns or funding recovery centers or programs.

“We have these huge settlements now, but we have to use that money in a way that will hopefully help people and get the drugs off the street,” Cox said.

The governor also pointed to recent law enforcement efforts near Salt Lake’s Jordan River Trail and Fairpark Area . According to the Utah Department of Public Safety, more than 350,000 fentanyl pills were seized in that part of the city this year alone.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

The post A ‘devastating’ tally: Utah breaks annual record for fentanyl seizures in just 6 months appeared first on Utah News Dispatch .