Denver police launch fentanyl investigations unit

The Denver Police Department will assign five detectives and a sergeant to a newly-created unit dedicated to investigating fentanyl-dealing rings and deaths.

At least 219 people died of fentanyl overdoses in Denver in 2022, according to the most recent data available from the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner. Although the 2022 data is not final, fentanyl overdoses represent half of the 424 overdose deaths in the city last year.

The number of fentanyl deaths in 2022 is a slight decrease from the 239 deaths in 2021, but a significant increase from the 17 deaths recorded in 2018.

Illicit fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid increasingly being cut into street drugs like heroin and cocaine, sometimes unbeknownst to the people using the drugs. It’s cheaper to make than cocaine and heroin and extremely potent — the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency estimates fentanyl is 50 times as powerful as heroin and as little as 3 milligrams can be a lethal dose.

Experts have dubbed illicit fentanyl’s infiltration into the U.S. drug market the third wave of the country’s decades-old opioid crisis. The new Denver police team will focus on disrupting distribution networks and overdose death investigations, according to a news release from the department.

Denver police recovered 131 pounds of fentanyl last year — a significant increase from the 5 pounds recovered in 2019, according to data provided by the department.

Denver police investigated 1,724 cases involving suspected fentanyl in 2022 — six times the 286 fentanyl-related cases in 2020.