Dealing death: Fentanyl-laced pills pose fatal risk to unsuspecting users in northern Illinois

Mike Whaley knows what it’s like to live with crushing grief.

The Lake Villa man has not been the same since his only child, Jacob “Whales” Whaley, died Feb. 14, 2024.

“Losing a child was so unnatural,” Whaley said. “It leaves a hole in you. It’s a scar. Even when people think you are doing OK, you are not doing OK. It is something that never heals.”

An artist who loved music and was described as loving and funny, Jacob was just 27 years old when he fell prey to the threat posed by counterfeit pills, street drugs that buyers do not know contain deadly doses of fentanyl.

Police said Whaley traveled to Wisconsin and bought “Percocet 30 mg/oxycodone pills,” which wound up being fentanyl-laced counterfeits. Whaley died from the adverse effects of fentanyl.

Ashton Cowart of Kenosha, Wisconsin, is charged with drug-induced homicide in Jacob Whaley’s death. If convicted, Cowart faces up to 30 years in prison.

“It goes deep for everyone,” Whaley said. “Unfortunately, it is a bigger problem than the average American understands.”

Drug Enforcement Administration Chicago Field Division Special Agent in Charge Todd Smith said counterfeit pills “are one of the most dangerous drug threats we face.”

“They’re designed to look legitimate but often contain fentanyl in deadly, unpredictable amounts,” Smith said. “One pill can be fatal.”

How big is the problem?

Purchased unlawfully, the drugs often are stamped as M30s, Xanax, Percocet, Oxycodone, Vicodin or Adderall. It doesn’t take much for added fentanyl to turn deadly: A lethal dose of fentanyl is equivalent in size to a few grains of salt, according to information from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

And the chance that a buyer can unwittingly end up with one is growing.

Luis Agostini, DEA public information officer for the division that includes northern and central Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, said the DEA Chicago Field Division seized 1.7 million counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl in 2025.

That is up from 1.2 million in 2024 and just 54,900 in 2020, according to the DEA’s Chicago Field Division.

One example of the continued threat happened in 2024, when a mother and son from Arizona — described by prosecutors as “carriers” for a Mexican cartel — smuggled 120,000 counterfeit pills into McHenry County.

Despite the blue pills being stamped as oxycodone, they tested positive for fentanyl and had a street value of $1.8 million to $3.6 million, prosecutors said during initial court appearances for Gloria Gastelum, 55, and her son, German Vargas Jr., 33, of Tucson.

“They had enough pills to kill 120,000 people,” Assistant State’s Attorney Stephen Gregorowicz said.

Fentanyl’s growing appearance has to do with the use of opioids.

Specific to Illinois, an unclassified 2024 DEA report said the opioid threat was of grave concern, “particularly regarding the proliferation of fake oxycodone pills.” Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, with its growing use pinned on a couple of reasons, among them as a substitute for heroin.

Fentanyl, which is cheaper to make than heroin, is mixed with other drugs because it enhances and prolongs a drug’s effect. It’s that use which is leading to a huge surge in overdoses in recent years, the CDC said.

Where does fentanyl come from?

“Historically, the counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl that we have seen throughout our communities are produced in Mexico en masse by the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) drug trafficking cartels,” Agostini said.

The pills are made with chemical precursors imported from Chinese pharmaceutical companies, he said.

The cartels then use their distribution network to traffic the counterfeit pills throughout the U.S., he said.

Gastelum and Vargas — who have since pleaded guilty to fentanyl possession charges and have been sentenced to prison for 17 and 13 years, respectively — were part of that network, prosecutors said.

Coincidentally, Agostini said there has been an increase in the domestic production of counterfeit pills as well. Dealers use fentanyl powder trafficked from Mexico to the U.S.

Fighting fentanyl

“Any pill you buy off the street has the potential to have fentanyl in it,” said Laura Fry, executive director of Live4Lali, an Arlington Heights-based nonprofit that works to reduce stigma and prevent substance use disorder.

The organization provides outreach services and access to harm-reduction items, including fentanyl test strips, and will send items through the mail if requested. Teams travel in “The Stigma Crushing” purple truck to Lake, McHenry, Winnebago, Boone, suburban Cook, Kane and DuPage counties.

Jordan Silberman of Palatine, a volunteer with Live4Lali, warns about the dangers of counterfeit pills.

In 2022, his brother, Matthew David Silberman, died in a Rolling Meadows motel from a fentanyl-laced, pressed-pill overdose. He was 32.

Jordan Silberman said he also has been “involved in every part of” the drug world and has fought drug addiction for 14 years. At times, he’s sold drugs to pay for his addiction.

Silberman, now 32, said he is sharing his story “because the world needs to know about this” scourge.

He has purchased Percocet pills from dealers on the street, where they are called “blues” and can cost from $2 to $20. Users buy them from dealers because they are easy to get and cheap, he said.

Silberman warns that when buying pills on the street, “you are playing Russian roulette every time you take one of those pills.”

Some groups provide Narcan (naloxone), an opioid-reversing medication that can save a life if given within minutes of a suspected overdose.

In December, the DEA launched “Fentanyl Free America,” a comprehensive enforcement initiative and public awareness campaign aimed at reducing the supply and demand for fentanyl, and emphasizes the importance of public engagement.