After a string of teenage fentanyl deaths, police and federal drug enforcement agents vowed to find the ultimate source of the deadly pills that were killing Carrollton's children.
Nearly two years later, investigators said that journey took them from a neighborhood near two Carrollton schools to mid-level suppliers across the DFW Metroplex to the Western United States and now to the doorstep of one of Mexico's most infamous drug cartels.
In interviews with NBC 5 Investigates, two law enforcement officials who directed the investigation offered a rare look inside one of the nation’s most high-profile juvenile fentanyl overdose investigations.
They described how fentanyl dealers used social media and text messages to more easily market their deadly product to teens. But those same tools, they said, proved to be an Achilles heel for the cartel, providing valuable evidence and allowing agents to connect the dots from each pill, each teenage death, to clandestine labs and cartel operatives in Sinaloa, Mexico.
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In Carrollton, those pills poured quietly into town. Pain and heartache came next for parents like Lilia Astudillo, who woke up one morning to discover her son had died in his own bed.
Astudillo told NBC 5 Investigates she called out to her 14-year-old son José "Beto" Pérez, went into his room, and called him again.
"I came in and told Beto, 'Stop playing.' I spoke to him loudly, 'Stop playing like that.' He didn't answer me," Astudillo said in Spanish. "He was a good boy. He had a big heart."
By January 2023, Carrollton was in the grips of an outbreak of teen overdoses that ultimately left six teens dead and 16 more hospitalized. Robert Arredondo was the city's new police chief tasked with bringing the overdoses to an end.
"There's nothing more important or more precious than our children. And it was an all-hands-on-deck," Arredondo said.
Arredondo reached out to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Dallas Special Agent-in-Charge Eduardo Chavez.
"I met him at a luncheon, and he came up, he says, 'Hey, I think I've got some connections to some juvenile overdoses on fentanyl pills. I'd love for you to take a look," said Chavez.
For nearly two years, Chavez and Arredondo's teams would join forces using mobile phone messages, social media posts, and old-fashioned surveillance to trace the path of the poisonous pills back to their source.
"We were going to find that line and follow it to wherever it was going," Arredondo said. "And we needed the DEA resources to help us with that."
Carrollton police said they already had strong leads after interviewing surviving young overdose victims and examining messages on the mobile phones of victims.
Astudillo told NBC 5 Investigates they discovered many things, including conversations about other people and what they wrote to her son. Phone messages pointed investigators toward a Highland Drive home near RL Turner High School and DeWitt Perry Middle School.
"It all pointed to that house. That students were being able to walk up right to that door and purchase fentanyl pills," Chavez said.
Fearing more overdoses, investigators quickly set up surveillance to confirm drug sales were happening at the home.
"We were moving knowing that every second mattered," said Chavez.
Soon, police and federal agents swooped in and arrested Luis Navarrete and his girlfriend, Magaly Mejia Cano. Police said Navarrete's girlfriend helped him supply pills to teenagers and a network of teenage dealers.
"So for us, that was a good first step to be able to a least get him off the street," said Chavez.
From there, investigators began looking into who was providing Navarrete with his supply of deadly pills. Fortunately for investigators, his suppliers were also using electronic messages and social media. The search led to at least four people agents said were supplying or delivering pills to Navarette, including Jason Villanueva, who was arrested at a location in Coppell.
In a plea deal, Villanueva admitted to distributing about 40,000 fentanyl pills each month.
Investigators also arrested Adrian Martinez Leon and Julio Gonzales Jr. after raiding a home on Tyler Street in Southern Dallas. During a search, agents said they found more than 15,000 fentanyl pills stashed in the microwave oven, along with weapons and cash.
In a plea deal, Gonzales admitted supplying more than 120,000 pills, nearly one for every person living in Carrollton.
"That's 120,000 lives that are hanging on the balance," said Chavez.
As investigators made more arrests, they spotted something startling. They noticed more suppliers were stepping forward, filling the void created by the arrests, and willing to sell deadly drugs to kids in Carrollton.
One peddler even posted on Instagram about the teenage deaths and Navarrete's arrest, saying, "F 'em, come get 'em." It was one of a series of posts investigators said advertised that the supplier was still open for business.
Police said the posts were frustrating, but eventually, they arrested that supplier after zeroing in on a home on Versailles Drive in Carrollton. Agents ran surveillance and identified Donovan Jude Andrews as the man behind the latest posts advertising illegal drugs, and they watched as they said he distributed pills.
Investigators would later learn Andrews was supplied by others, including 18-year-old Stephen Paul Brinson, who they said moved pills through his parent's house in Flower Mound.
There were others, too. Agents raided a motel in Arlington where they said two men ran another operation that continued to feed juvenile dealers in Carrollton.
But investigators didn't stop at the local level.
In an interview with NBC 5 Investigates, Chavez revealed that the DEA now has evidence showing most of the pills traveled to Carrollton via Arizona and California, where they first entered the U.S. from Mexico. Specifically, the pills came from a clandestine lab in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, home of Mexico's notorious Sinaloa cartel.
When she first heard that the pills that killed her son came from the Sinaloa cartel, Astudillo wondered how that was possible. After all, she said she left Mexico for the United States to give her children a better life.
"How is it possible that the problems of Mexico caught up with me here?" Astudillo said.
Investigators vow that they will catch up to those in Mexico who are responsible for the teenager's death. Chavez confirmed that federal investigators know who they are looking for, but because of the ongoing investigation, they cannot say how close they were to making an arrest.
"If I told you that Scott, they would be very, very scared," Chavez said speaking to NBC 5's Scott Friedman. "But I'm going to say, I'm going to leave that one until we actually have them in hand."
Chavez told NBC 5 Investigates that, in some ways, pills flow more easily now from Mexico into places like Carrollton because technology allows higher-level cartel leaders to direct deliveries from far away.
"In just a minute, I can speak to anyone across the globe, arrange for whatever product I want. And it eliminated, essentially, the middleman," Chavez said.
However, he said the same technology is the cartel's Achilles heel, as it has helped investigators identify operatives across the continent.
"I want them to live under that stress that at any particular given morning, somebody might be knocking on their door and saying that they have to answer to a lot of criminal charges in Dallas, Texas," Chavez said.
Investigators said more arrests would be another step toward honoring the Carrollton families who have lost so much.
"I'd go back to those families and say, 'You know, we followed this because of the story I heard from you. The things you told me. The heartbreak that you have,'" Arredondo said. "'I want you to know that we listened.'"
The suspects named in our report all pleaded guilty to federal drug charges. Authorities have arrested more than two dozen adult and juvenile dealers since the investigation began.
Investigators told NBC 5 Investigates that this case also marked a turning point because they could see many teens were specifically seeking fentanyl. Before 2022-2023, the national narrative was often that teens bought these pills, thinking they were something else and were unwittingly poisoned with fentanyl. In Carrollton, messages showed some children who were 13 and 14 years old were seeking fentanyl. Agents said it was a wake-up call for them and parents everywhere.
WHAT IS FENTANYL?
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. Just two milligrams of fentanyl, which is equal to 10-15 grains of table salt, is considered a lethal dose.
Without laboratory testing, there is no way to know how much fentanyl is concentrated in a pill or powder. If you encounter fentanyl in any form, do not handle it and call 911 immediately.
Fentanyl remains the deadliest drug threat facing this country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 107,622 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, with 66% of those deaths related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Drug poisonings are the leading killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. Fentanyl available in the United States is primarily supplied by two criminal drug networks, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
WHAT IS RAINBOW FENTANYL?
In August 2022 the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a public advisory about the alarming emerging trend of colorful fentanyl available nationwide.
Brightly-colored fentanyl, dubbed "rainbow fentanyl" in the media, is being seized in multiple forms, including pills, powder, and blocks that resemble sidewalk chalk.
“Rainbow fentanyl—fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes—is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “The men and women of the DEA are relentlessly working to stop the trafficking of rainbow fentanyl and defeat the Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in the United States.”
Despite claims that certain colors may be more potent than others, there is no indication through DEA’s laboratory testing that this is the case. The DEA said every color, shape, and size of fentanyl should be considered extremely dangerous.
WHAT IS NARCAN?
Narcan is an over-the-counter prepackaged nasal spray containing naloxone hydrochloride which is an opioid antagonist that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose, but only temporarily.
According to the manufacturer, "Narcan nasal spray is a prescription medicine used for the treatment of a known or suspected opioid overdose emergency with signs of breathing problems and severe sleepiness or not being able to respond."
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, naloxone is an FDA-approved medication that is used to reverse an opioid overdose.
SAMHSA said because naloxone is a temporary treatment its effects do not last long and it's critical to obtain medical intervention as soon as possible after administering or receiving naloxone.
WHAT IS NALOXONE?
According to the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, naloxone is a medicine that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose by attaching itself to opioid receptors and either reversing or blocking the effects of opioids.
"Naloxone can quickly restore normal breathing to a person if their breathing has slowed or stopped because of an opioid overdose. But, naloxone has no effect on someone who does not have opioids in their system, and it is not a treatment for opioid use disorder. Examples of opioids include heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone (OxyContin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), codeine, and morphine.
Naloxone comes in two FDA-approved forms, injectable and as a nasal spray.
Naloxone works for only 30 to 90 minutes and many opioids remain in the body longer than that. It is possible for a person to still experience the effects of an overdose after a dose of naloxone wears off so it's imperative to call 911 or get the overdosing person medical attention as soon as possible after the dose is administered.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on March 29, 2023, approved selling naloxone without a prescription, setting the overdose-reversing drug on course to become the first opioid treatment drug to be sold over the counter.
A different drug, Opvee (nalmefene) is also an emergency nasal spray medication used to reverse an opioid overdose. Opvee, however, is not approved for over-the-counter use and can only be obtained with a prescription. Nalmefene stays in the body longer than naloxone and may be more effective for overdoses caused by long-acting opioids but it also may come with more opioid withdrawal symptoms.
DOES THE FDA APPROVAL MEAN I CAN BUY NARCAN AT CVS OR WALGREENS?
Yes. Narcan is currently available over-the-counter at pharmacies.
Other brands of nasal sprays (RiVive) and injectables may also soon be available over the counter.
