Man found with 36,000 fake pills containing fentanyl found guilty by Sacramento jury
A man arrested last year after being found with tens of thousands of fake oxycodone pills that contained fentanyl has been convicted in Sacramento Superior Court.
An officer with the California Highway Patrol’s North Sacramento office pulled over Jose Aguilar-Chavez, 56, Sept. 2 for a traffic violation, during which the officer noticed “an overwhelming smell of rotten fruit,” the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said in a Wednesday news release.
The officer suspected the scent was being used to mask the smell of illegal narcotics, so he deployed a K-9 to search the vehicle. The dog alerted the officer to a compartment inside the vehicle, in which officers located “36,000 fabricated ‘M30’ Oxycodone pills,” prosecutors wrote.
“The District Attorney’s Crime Lab analyzed the pills and confirmed they were fake and contained fentanyl,” the news release continued. Authorities estimated the street value of the pills at between $180,000 and $720,000.
A jury last week found Aguilar-Chavez guilty of transportation of fentanyl for sale.
Aguilar-Chavez faces a maximum of five years in prison. He remains in custody at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove, awaiting a scheduling hearing set for June 10.
