The Rocky Mountain division of the Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 1 million pills during an October enforcement operation, the third most in the country, federal officials said.
Colorado agents alone seized more than 665,000 potentially deadly pills and 2.41 kilograms of fentanyl powder, the equivalent of 1.2 million lethal doses, DEA Rocky Mountain Field Division Special Agent in Charge David Olesky said.
The division’s other three states — Utah, Montana and Wyoming — seized another 387,000 pills and 1.04 kilograms of powder, about 520,000 lethal doses, according to the DEA.
Fentanyl is a deadly synthetic opioid that’s pressed into counterfeit pills or mixed into heroin, cocaine and other street drugs. Federal officials believe 76,516 people died from drug overdoses between May 2024 and April 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While that’s a 24.5% decline nationally from the 12 months prior, Olesky said that overdoses in Denver remain “on record pace.”
“Most folks would never choose to do fentanyl,” Olesky said. “We really refer to the deaths that are happening around the country as poisonings because folks don’t know what they’re taking.”
As of Sept. 14, the date the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner’s overdose dashboard was last updated, the city had seen a 22.1% increase in overdose deaths from that time in 2024.
Olesky described the October initiative, Operation Fentanyl Free America, as “comprehensive, blunt force,” where agents focused on cases with more immediate impacts “on a national and international level to disrupt the fentanyl supply chain.”
The ramped-up enforcement operations in October were unrelated to recent strikes on drug boats near Venezuela, Rocky Mountain Field Division spokesperson Steffan Tubbs said in an email to The Denver Post.
“Fentanyl Free America represents DEA’s unwavering commitment to save American lives and end the fentanyl crisis,” DEA Administrator Terrance Cole said in a statement. “DEA is striking harder and evolving faster to dismantle the foreign terrorists fueling this crisis, while empowering all our partners to join the fight to prevent fentanyl-related tragedies.”
The operation does not include the recent discovery of 1.7 million counterfeit fentanyl pills in a Douglas County storage unit, the largest DEA seizure in Colorado history and the sixth-largest on U.S. record.
In the last two years, the amount of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA containing potentially lethal doses dropped by nearly 50%, according to data from the agency. Just under 30% of pills tested by the DEA in the 2025 fiscal year contained a “potential lethal dose” of fentanyl, 2 milligrams or more, Olesky said.
“It’s a good sign that potency is down, but when it’s three out of 10 pills still with a lethal dose, it’s still playing Russian Roulette with your life,” Olesky said. “…One pill can kill, but one conversation can save.”
Since 2021, nearly 325,000 Americans have died from synthetic opioids, according to the DEA.
Resources for families are available online at https://www.dea.gov/togetherforfamilies.
Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.