Recent data released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is shocking, capturing how much of a role Colorado plays in terms of the country’s illegal fentanyl market.

According to that data, 6.7 million fentanyl pills were seized in the Centennial State throughout 2025, about 14.3 percent of the 47 million fentanyl pills seized by the DEA nationwide. Compared to 2024, Colorado saw a 76 percent uptick in fentanyl pill seizures last year, leading the states in the Rocky Mountain Field Division, which consists of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. Utah also had a high number of pill seizures in 2025, too, at about 2 million.

In total, the 8.7 million pill seizures in the Rocky Mountain Field Division of the DEA made up about 18.5 percent of fentanyl pill seizures nationwide.

One of the largest pill seizures that took place in Colorado last year was announced in November, with an estimated 1.7 million counterfeit fentanyl pills found in a Denver metro storage facility in the suburb of Highlands Ranch. On top of that, 12 kilograms of fentanyl powder was also seized, which was described as enough powder to create six million additional pills.

This was the largest fentanyl seizure in state history and the six-largest in U.S. history. Oddly enough, the pills were discovered in a way that “played out like an episode of a TV show,” said the DEA. A person bid on a storage unit in Highlands Ranch and upon winning that bid, the individual discovered that the unit contained a massive amount of fentanyl. Local law enforcement was immediately contacted by the individual and the registered owner of the unit was already in federal custody by the time the press release on the bust went out.

Information about the value of the product specifically seized in the Denver area bust wasn’t made public, though in October of 2018, the DEA valued a bust yielding 32 kilograms of fentanyl at a street value of $28.8 million. This would value each kilogram of fentanyl at $900,000, meaning the 12 kilograms of the Denver bust could be worth around $10.8 million – and that’s not including the pills (tacking on about three more kilograms of powder based on 500,000 pills per kilogram calculation noted about). Obviously, that’s just napkin math and a lot of factors are at play – there’s a pretty big gap between 2018 and 2025, and on top of that purity becomes a major factor when estimates of this nature come out, and how the purity of the fentanyl powder in the Denver metro bust compares to the fentanyl found in the 2018 bust is unknown. Either way, it’s probably safe to assume that the value of the fentanyl that was seized in the Denver bust would have been worth millions on the streets.

Of the 6.7 million fentanyl pills seized in Colorado last year, roughly 25% of those pills came from the Highlands Ranch storage unit bust. Granted, the seizure of the fentanyl powder could be considered even more significant – as noted, enough to make another six million pills.

“Getting more of this deadly drug off the streets saves lives. In Colorado, we are cracking down on crime, apprehending dangerous criminals, and keeping our communities safe,” said Governor Jared Polis. “I thank the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and our federal partners for working with us to get criminals off of Colorado streets, out of our communities, and ensure Coloradans and families are safe.”

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