A young woman, aged 20, from Arizona, was apprehended on Colorado’s Western Slope following a traffic stop where law enforcement discovered 60 pounds of pills inside her vehicle.
The Garfield County Sheriff’s Office suspects that the pills are fake Oxycontin and likely contain fentanyl. They estimate that the 222,360 pills weigh a total of 59.64 pounds and have a street value of $2,668,320.
Leslie Lopez-Rojas, along with two accomplices named Christopher Daniel Gaytan Adriano and Consuelo Stephanee Pena, all hailing from the Phoenix area, have been apprehended by the authorities.
The Garfield County Sheriff’s Office has chosen not to disclose the identities of the accomplices involved in the incident, nor have they provided information regarding the date of the traffic stop. However, on Thursday, Lopez-Rojas was officially informed of the charges filed against her. These charges include the importation of a schedule II controlled substance into the state, which is classified as a class 1 drug felony.
Lopez-Rojas’s bond was set at $1 million cash by the judge.
The car was pulled over on Interstate 70 near Parachute, and the sheriff’s office, along with investigators from the Garfield County SPEAR Task Force, deserve credit for discovering the contraband, according to a press release.
According to Lt. Brent Baker, a GCSO deputy observed that Lopez-Rojas’s vehicle did not use a turn signal while changing lanes. Additionally, her vehicle was tailgating a semi, which led to the traffic stop.
The authorities sent the blue M-30 pills discovered in the vehicle to a laboratory run by the U.S. Drug Enforcement for testing. Typically, it takes several weeks to receive the results, according to Baker.
According to the agency’s website, the DEA recorded a staggering 79.5 million fentanyl pills seized in 2023. It is alarming to note that, on average, seven out of every 10 confiscated pills contain a lethal dose of fentanyl.
Garfield authorities are continuing to investigate Lopez-Rojas’s illicit activity.