9 Investigates dangerous 'kill pills' on Central Florida streets

ORLANDO, Fla. — Pills that look just like prescription drugs are being sold on Central Florida streets and they could kill a person with just one dose. 9 Investigates has warned people before about what agents have dubbed ‘kill pills,’ which are pure fentanyl pills made to look like prescription painkillers.

Investigative reporter Karla Ray found out that fentanyl is not just being sold in local neighborhoods, but also being made in Central Florida.

Investigators said a woman died inside an Osceola County home after taking a pill her estranged boyfriend fashioned out of fentanyl in the garage.

“What is there to say? They came, they went, they took the drugs with them,” neighbor Ron Neyer said.

It was Super Bowl Sunday when Osceola County deputies arrested Eric Falkowski after allegedly finding fentanyl in his pocket and later, a pill press in his garage. According to a federal complaint, Falkowski had several tableting machines, thousands of tablets, bags of powders and several dyes used to make counterfeit tablets.  Agents noted the pills looked like Oxycodone but were actually pure fentanyl.

“In many cases, we don't know until the lab analyzes it. It's a perfect counterfeit pill,” Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Jeff Walsh said.

Walsh said the fentanyl pills are 50 times stronger than heroin.

Eyewitness News got a look at some of the pills inside Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s lab that were seized and found the pills often trick the agents and the accused dealers.

“Traffickers we've arrested have sold to us, in an undercover capacity, oxycodone pills. They turned out to be 100 percent fentanyl,” Walsh said.

That was allegedly the case in Titusville, where two high school football coaches were accused of trafficking pills. A federal complaint stated the tablets Leonard Charles Agee Jr. and Benjamin Jenkins represented as oxycodone were actually fentanyl.

“If you're going to ingest something for recreational use, you don't know what you're getting anymore,” Walsh said.

Walsh said the motivation is money. He said a kilo of fentanyl, which costs around $3,500 on the front end, can mean millions in profit.

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