CHICAGO (WLS) — The drug threat landscape in Chicago is constantly evolving, and so is the Drug Enforcement Administration’s efforts to combat deadly drugs like fentanyl from flooding streets. The DEA is now tracking a new trend.<\/p>\n
Cartels are changing how fentanyl is produced and distributed in the U.S. and new intelligence finding fentanyl pills are being made closer to home, over the border and stateside.<\/p>\n
The ABC7 I-Team went inside the Drug Enforcement Administration Chicago division’s lab. It is the beating heart of forensic analysis for the massive amounts of seized drugs being dissected, tested by chemists to get a detailed readout of what’s inside.<\/p>\n
ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24\/7. Click here to watch<\/a><\/p>\n At one bench were mounds of M-30s, which are hydrocodone pills. While they are blue and stamped with the same label, they are counterfeit and contain fentanyl.<\/p>\n “We’ve seen a shift of the of the Mexican cartels away from the mass production of, of counterfeit pills M-30s,” said Todd Smith the Deputy Special Agent In Charge of the DEA Chicago Division.<\/p>\n Smith says over the past year he’s seen a concerning change in how cartels carry their contraband into the country. Instead of fully formed fentanyl pills, he says there’s been a significant increase in fentanyl powder brought over the border.<\/p>\n “We’ve seen that through an increase in fentanyl powder seizures in the Chicago field division,” Smith said. “And our concern is that the pills will be pressed domestically, and we’re starting to see that with pill press seizures that we’re making with across the field division and in Chicago.”<\/p>\n