PHOENIX (AP) - Nearly 170,000 deadly fentanyl pills have been seized by a federal task force that also included members from Phoenix police and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the federal agency says.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office for Arizona said in a statement Thursday the seizure was part of a drug trafficking investigation that resulted in the arrest of 24-year-old Marcelino Ontiveros Quintero and Norma Ibarra Justo, who was driving the car he was riding in.
Both were booked into Maricopa County Jail.
The DEA says the seizure of fentanyl pills known as “Mexican oxy” was among the largest ever in Arizona. The agency did not give an exact date for the seizure and arrests.
Mexican cartels manufacture the dangerous pills, which are fashioned to look like prescription pills such as Oxycodone, and smuggle them across the border into the United States.
DEA and other law enforcement agencies across the U.S. estimate they seized more than 1.4 million of the dangerous pills during the last fiscal year.
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