CLEVELAND (AP) - Authorities say they’ve arrested a man in a Cleveland suburb after seizing more than 900 fentanyl pills marked liked tablets of the less-potent opiate oxycodone.
A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s affidavit says the pills were found Feb. 3 during a search of the car and Euclid apartment of 29-year-old Ryan Gaston. Authorities say crack cocaine and a rifle also were seized.
A magistrate ordered Gaston held without bond on Monday. Gaston’s attorney didn’t respond to messages.
The Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County medical examiner said last week that lookalike pills were likely to blame for some of the county’s 19 fentanyl-related overdose deaths in January.
He said fentanyl deaths spiked from 37 in 2014 to 89 last year and that some of the lookalikes could be coming from China.
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