The front lines of the war on Fentanyl: Inside the DEA's Chicago drug testing lab
CHICAGO (CBS 58) -- Times are changing in the fight against fentanyl. Wisconsin used to be solely a destination state for illicit drugs, but lately, the state's starting to also be a primary transit state for drugs destined for Minneapolis along the I-90 corridor. That may be why the latest busts here are in bulk, and bigger than ever. We got an exclusive look inside the Drug Enforcement Administration's lab in Chicago where those street drugs are being tested every day.
From the streets of Green Bay just a few weeks ago to the hands of skilled chemists this month, before DEA agents can win the war on drugs, first, they need to know what they're fighting.
"Recently in Green Bay they had the largest fentanyl pill seizure to date in the state of Wisconsin and one of the largest and most significant seizures of counterfeit fentanyl pills in the country," said John McGarry, Assistant Special Agent in Charge for DEA Wisconsin.
The pill count is just shy of 200,000.
"We're seeing them come to the state through all delivery methods, all smuggling methods through parcel post, but the largest quantity is just driven up in a car with a concealment in the vehicle," said McGarry.
Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the Wisconsin DEA John McGarry walked us through the North Central Lab. It's in downtown Chicago. We're not allowed to show you the exact location, but this vault inside holds streets drugs by the hundreds of thousands. Many have already been tested and are bagged, waiting for court proceedings.
"The number of counterfeit fentanyl pills or illicit fentanyl pills that are in the drug supply has been growing year after year after year. If I would go back to 2021 in Wisconsin, we seized less than a thousand, and to now look at the state and see that we're seizing in the order of hundreds of thousands per year is a massive increase," said McGarry.
While the amount of fentanyl being found is increasing, overdose deaths are decreasing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported nationwide, a 14.5 percent decrease from 2023 to 2024, but of those who died, 70 percent had opioids such as fentanyl in their system. In Milwaukee County, we're seeing a similar picture. The year 2024's expected to finish with an estimated 471 overdose deaths, including 301 that contained fentanyl. The year 2021 saw 644 overdose deaths including 512 that contained fentanyl, and in 2017 there were significantly less with 397 overdose deaths that included 188 that contained fentanyl.
I'm a supervisory chemist here at the DEA lab in Chicago. We're standing at our evidence vault. So this is where our evidence is received from our agents that are bringing it in for submissions," said Leah Law, supervisory chemist at the DEA's North Central Lab.
DEA agents from 12 states, including Wisconsin, submit their confiscated drugs to the North Central Lab. Last year, they took in over 91-hundred exhibits, processing 8,200 of them.
"So, they could have somebody that seized a bag of cocaine, they could have somebody that seized 200 kilos of methamphetamine. So each of those would be one exhibit, one sample that the chemist is testing," said Law.
Leah Law showed us bag after bag of pills, some in bright pastel colors.
"This is a sample of M30s. These were suspected oxycodone tablets that actually contained fentanyl. We also have some counterfeit Adderall tablets. So, a real Adderall would have amphetamine. These actually contain methamphetamine," said Law.
Fake blue M30s, made to resemble oxycodone, a narcotic pain reliever. These were from the Milwaukee area and so is this.
"So, this is a kilo of fentanyl. So, you can see it's pressed into a brick shape. It's kind of a gray color. It's got an imprint on it that can kind of be an advertisement of what may be in there," said Law.
We asked how fast it the turn around.
"We're trying to do our priority exhibits in about 30 days. Right now, fentanyl is so big right now that fentanyl samples are priorities -28 so we're trying to get fentanyl powders, fentanyl tablets that come in," said Law.
Dealing with deadly compounds, personal protective gear's a must for the 20 chemists in the lab.
"A lot of times like breathing it in is one thing you want to be concerned about. Even getting it on your hands if you don't wash your hands soon enough you can risk getting it you know putting it on your face or getting it in your mouth or something so," said Law.
In the last few years, the North Central Lab's reported no exposure-related illnesses.
"We do keep Narcan in the labs multiple places and especially if someone's working on something that is high hazard they keep it close, they let everybody know that they're working on it so that everybody can kind of pay attention and watch their partners in the lab," said Law.
Sarah R. is a chemist, working on the front lines of this war on drugs.
"In the North Central Lab we see about one third fentanyl, one third cocaine and one third methamphetamine exhibits -04 the remainder is true unknowns. So, this like the M30 tablets that we're seeing, the fake "oxy's". So, each of these tablets is just over 100mg so to put that into perspective 2 mg is the lethal dose of fentanyl. So that's two percent, less than two percent of that tablet could kill you. The first step is a presumptive test. This is similar to like a covid test or a pregnancy test. So, I take a small scoop of the crushed tablet and then I put it into water. One of these and then I just pop that in.
Opposite of a covid and a pregnancy test, two lines actually means negative. They're all one line which means they're all positive for fentanyl. I really enjoy my job. I love doing the science aspect of my job standing at the hood getting to do the actual testing that's involved. That's my favorite part of it.
Once the initial testing is completed and fentanyl is presumed, the vials are taken to this instrument to confirm the presence of fentanyl and anything else with it.
"So, then she'll go over here, make a different solution go over here and then this will say it's one percent, it's 10 percent, it's 20 percent. This part itself will take an hour. This is probably a couple hours because she's gonna test nine tablets," said Law.
According to this DEA report just released, the most significant drug-related threat to Wisconsin comes from two Mexican drug trafficking organizations, polluting the community with fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and Mexico-grown marijuana.
"The process is they've got a hopper. They're putting their fentanyl compound in that hopper of a tableting machine and they're adding other compounds to extend, right to make more money, more profit, or they're putting it in a barrel, a bucket, or a drum and then dumping in the machine. That's not a pharmaceutical," said McGarry.
Agents from across the state train together on a regular basis because the challenges with identifying suspects are ever-changing.
"So, money is now just being transferred to cryptocurrency or deposited as cryptocurrency and then moved to foreign accounts you know like that. So, what previously had allowed lots of opportunities for law enforcement to intervene in the smuggling and movement of bulk currency, right, the different types of interception…. those are now being circumvented by cryptocurrency," said McGarry.
In 2023, the DEA seized 1.9 million fake pills in Wisconsin. Shockingly, that number doubled from 2022 to 2023. And, seven in 10 of those fake pills contained a potentially deadly dose of fentanyl.
"Unless you got it legitimately prescribed by a registered physician, nurse practitioner or under the care of somebody in the medical establishment for legitimate purposes, to take any pill from anybody else is a possibly lethal decision," said McGarry.