Ohio police estimated that pills disguised as oxycodone that were recently seized in Richland County contained enough fentanyl to kill more than 168,500 people, authorities said.
Ontario police seized the drugs earlier this month, the Mansfield News Journal reported.
Police in Ohio recently seized more than 1,500 pills disguised as Oxycodone that were laced with enough fentanyl that they could have killed more than 168,500 people. https://t.co/HiZVNcCBmc
— NBC4 Columbus (@nbc4i) September 26, 2019
The police department posted an update on its Facebook page about the discovery.
"Those pills have been tested at the lab and the test results have revealed that the pills are actually fentanyl disguised as Oxycodone," department officials wrote.
"Doing the math," police wrote, the pills could have resulted in over 168,500 deaths. Police said the pills contained 118 million micrograms of fentanyl; a lethal dosage of the drug could be as little as 700 micrograms.
Ontario police seized more than 1,500 oxycodone pills -- which had an estimated street value of $22,590 -- after recovering a stolen vehicle, WCMH reported.
On Sept. 7, Ontario police arrested Josh Hogge, 35, of Winchester, Kentucky, in connection with the drugs, the television station reported. Hogge is free after posting a $10,000 bail after his Sept. 9 arraignment on a charge of receiving stolen property, WCMH reported.
According to court records, Hogge will appear again in court on Feb. 2, 2020, the News Journal reported.
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