PHOENIX – The Drug Enforcement Administration is alerting the public of dangerous counterfeit pills killing Americans. Mexican drug cartels are manufacturing mass quantities of counterfeit prescription pills containing fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic opioid that is lethal in minute doses, for distribution throughout North America. Based on a sampling of tablets...

PHOENIX – DEA officials in Arizona announce the 18th National Prescription Drug Take-Back will take place October 26th, from 10 am-2 pm local time. Sites will be set up throughout communities statewide so local residents can anonymously return their unwanted, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs for safe disposal. New to...

PHOENIX – The Drug Enforcement Administration has joined with the Yavapai-Apache Nation in Northern Arizona to deploy DEA’s 360 strategy in the tribal nation and surrounding rural area. The DEA 360 program was developed by DEA in 2015 to address the heroin and the opioid drug crisis across the nation...

PHOENIX - The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Phoenix Division and the Arizona Attorney General's Office announced the indictment of Rufina Lopez Covarruvia by a State Grand Jury for allegedly using her 13-year-old daughter to try and hide cocaine from officers during a traffic stop. Covarruvia is charged with multiple felony...

SAVANNAH, Ga: Pharmacists, a pharmacy, and several individuals have been named as defendants in various criminal and civil actions filed in federal court in the Southern District of Georgia as part of continuing efforts by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to combat the opioid epidemic. The actions in Georgia and Florida...

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Today, U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger sentenced Oscar Orlando Navarro-Melendez, 31, a Honduran national residing in Asheville, N.C. to 135 months in prison and five years of supervised release, for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, announced Andrew Murray, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Eight people have been charged in a 13-count federal indictment in a drug trafficking conspiracy that brought large amounts of narcotics from Atlanta for distribution in the Augusta area. The indictments stem from a two-year joint investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and Richmond County Sheriff’s Office...

Rome, Ga. – Atlanta-area doctor Victor Hanson and former professional football player Sedrick Hodge have been indicted with two other individuals for illegal distribution of prescription drugs, including opioids. “Americans rely on healthcare providers, many of them medical doctors, to use their training to help patients and to ‘do no...

ATLANTA - Francisco Castaneda Rivera has been sentenced to federal prison for transporting 4.24 kilograms of heroin, hidden inside a car battery, from Texas to the Atlanta-area. Robert J. Murphy, special agent in charge of the DEA Atlanta Field Division said, “Drug traffickers like Castaneda Rivera often take extreme measures...

PHOENIX – Last week, Kevin Dean McCoy, 28, of Tucson, Ariz., was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and launder proceeds from drug distribution. McCoy was the final defendant to receive their sentence following a federal DEA investigation into the dark...