Law enforcement agents seized more than 720,000 fentanyl pills during a recent investigative traffic stop in Alpine, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday.
The attorney general said the “massive bust” was the largest of its kind since the California Department of Justice’s Fentanyl Enforcement Program began partnering last year with a federal task force focused on fentanyl trafficking in San Diego County and along the California-Mexico border.
Like much of the nation, San Diego County has been grappling with skyrocketing rates of overdoses and deaths attributed to the powerful synthetic opioid, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, 100 times stronger than morphine and can be lethal in tiny doses. Fentanyl killed 815 people in 2022 in San Diego County — a 785-percent increase from the 92 people killed by the drug in 2018.