Hundreds of thousand of pills containing a powerful drug used to tranquilize large animals like elephants and rhinoceroses were seized by federal authorities in an operation last month in Los Angeles County.
What was described as a massive cache of carfentanil — 628,000 pills — were seized in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operation, the agency announced Wednesday.
Most of the pills, displayed in plastic baggies in a photo provided by the DEA, were seized from one LA County stash location. One person was arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking.
Details about the location and the individual’s identity were not immediately available.
The synthetic opioid has veterinary uses, but has made its way onto the illicit drug market. The agency said the drug is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 times more potent than morphine.
Only a small amount of carfentanil, 0.02 milligrams, can be lethal, the DEA said. It is often mixed with other drugs or pressed into pills that look like prescription painkillers.
Most of the carfentanil seizures in 2024 were in pill or tablet form.
Deaths involving carfentanil increased approximately sevenfold – from 29 deaths from January to June 2023, to 238 deaths from January to June 2024, according to the CDC.
The drug has been detected in 37 states, the DEA said.