This is a rare look
inside the Dallas Dea's drug va.
We are in a secret location where there are
boxes and boxes piled up to the ceiling.
Inside are drugs worth billions of dollars,
and the DEA says just one little pill
from this mountain of drugs can kill you.
It is, by far. North Texas is
most deadliest threat. We are
talking about fentanyl, a synthc
opioid painkiller that is taking lives.
I've been doing this for well over 20
years now and what I have seen h
fentanyl is, frankly, just scar.
So we're going to take a look
at some M30 fentanyl pills.
This is the drug lab where the
DEA test pills for fentanyl.
Last year alone,
they say they confiscated 11
million deadly doses in DFW.
This stuff is so dangerous.
There are warning signs inside the lab.
We also wear and 95 masks here
when we're handling all of
our evidence. That's because
fentanyl in a powdered form
can be fatal if inhaled.
Fentanyl is 50 times more potent
than heroin and 100 times more
potent than morphine. This is 2
milligrams of sugar in this via.
But the DEA says this small
amount that you could barely
see is all the fentanyl it would take for
you to overdose and possibly kill you.
And it's being found in pills like this.
That sugar packet alone has enoh
deadly doses for 500 people.
It is just simply grains.
Of that substance,
The pills are typically blue
and stamped with M30 on them,
made to look like real oxycodone pills.
But these are laced with something deadly.
Yes, we have a positive
for fentanyl right there.
The Center for Disease Control estimates
that more than 71,000 people dif
fentanyl overdoses nationwide in 2021.
And in Texas, fentanyl overdose deaths
have increased nearly 500% this year.
We have investigations that have
permeated every corner of the Metroplex,
from the urban areas to rural as
to the suburban gated communiti.
The drug is really impacting teenagers.
In February, we learned three
Carrollton teens died after police say
they took pills laced with fentl
and nearly a dozen more overdos.
This woman who asked us not to identify
her says her teenage daughter ny
died from it. He no no
puddle or me mi corazon esta
he chopeda. So that's
a ver que a pull over
muerto He has to a punte do.
The DEA says often times the des
getting into the schools are teenagers using
social media apps to attract customers.
But to find out where it's realy
coming from, you have to look to China,
where raw fentanyl powder is mae
and then sold to Mexican drug
cartels who press them into pil.
It's really. All about, you kno,
profit and the profit margin.
Federal authorities say the bigt
distributor of fentanyl in the US is the
notorious and powerful Sinaloa cartel,
once run by Joaquin El Chapo Gu,
now in a US prison.
But authorities say his family
is very much in charge.
They've
broken the code to be able to try and make
that raw fentanyl into pills that look
very familiar to all of us. While most
finished product is coming from Mexico,
the DEA says they are finding more pill
presses like these when they raid homes.
Distributors can press thousands
of pills using this machine. Evn
over the last six months,
we've seized several pill press
operations here in the DFW area,
where they're pressing fentanyl
pills in their garages. There
is a major drug case winding ity
through the federal courts in T.
The DEA says it involves one
of El Chapo's top suppliers,
Rafael Galindo Gallegos, and his son,
who based their operations in Po
and believed to be some of the largest
distributors of fentanyl in the.
Court documents show that
in November of 2019,
the DEA raided a storage shed ad
found ledgers that detailed $5.7
million in US currency and hunds
of kilos of narcotics that were
distributed in the DFW area alo.
The records also show the men we
supplying firearms purchased in
the US and smuggled to Mexico.
Those firearms were handed overo
the Sinaloa cartel to continue s
ongoing drug war and to fight L.
Enforcement and rival cartel members.
The FBI says the blood and viole
has also spilled into the US
and onto our streets.
When you have drug trafficking n
in your area, you have violence.
It's it goes hand in hand.
Federal authorities say in 2010,
Galindo Gallegos ordered
a hit on Raquel Ramirez.
The mother of two was shot gettg
out of her driveway in Dallas.
After dropping off her kids
at Bishop Lynch High School,
authorities say her husband,
a suspected drug dealer,
was taken to Mexico and assassinated.
The DEA says while some may
look at fentanyl as just pills,
it takes blood and violence to t
them onto Texas streets and inte
hands of teens who may not reale
just one pill kills in Dallas,
I'm Rebecca Lopez.