NORTH DAKOTA (KXNET) — Fentanyl is a tiny drug that's creating a mountain of work for police, investigators, and the courts in North Dakota. In part two of our series, Killer in Blue, we asked professionals around the capital city how fentanyl trafficking has changed how they do their jobs. "They have to get their fix, you know?" Bismarck Police K-9 Officer Joe Benke said. "Like the guy this morning. He opens his door, it's seven degrees out, he opens his car door, and he's sweating. You can see it in his hair and his forehead." It's a frigid weekday in January, and Benke is on a patrol shift. "Say if I do a K-9 sniff. And the K-9 indicates on the vehicle, and we search it and don't find anything. It doesn't mean it's not there," Benke said. Benke is partnered up with Mesa. They make a good team, but Benke's fellow officers who don't have a dog are getting more savvy at finding even the tiniest of drugs on people. "It's concealed in here, an Advil container. Usually, they're concealed even better. It's a blue pill, it's got the M on the one side," Benke said, displaying a counterfeit pill another officer found. "We have the best investigators, the best police officers, the best deputies, highway patrol, drug task force officers. They're incredibly good at their jobs," Assistant Burleigh County State's Attorney Dennis Ingold said. A few pills are considered relatively small time for a street officer. The larger fentanyl busts are sent to the state crime lab in Bismarck. "I think each one of these was 1,000 or 2,000 in each bag," State Crime Lab Forensic Chemistry Unit Technical Leader Charlene Rittenbach said. For almost 20 years, Rittenbach has handled drug testing for criminal cases around North Dakota. "We've had cases where it's every color of the rainbow, it seems like," Rittenbach said. Last year, she says the lab tested a thousand fentanyl samples. "The last four years, our turnaround time has not been great. Right now, it's about six months, which is the best it's been in the last five years," Rittenbach said. Killer in Blue Part 1: Fentanyl’s impact on families in North Dakota "China is shipping the precursor chemicals to countries like Mexico, where the cartels have super labs made up. And they're concocting these pills, they have pill presses, it looks identical to the prescription drugs," North Dakota attorney general Drew Wrigley said. "Whether we like to admit it or not, North Dakota is a target state for fentanyl dealers. Particularly, out of state. We have individuals and organizations that see North Dakota as a target. They see our prosperity, our economic prosperity, and they want to exploit that," Ingold said. Ingold says much of the fentanyl sold in North Dakota is being trafficked from Detroit, Arizona, and Chicago. Ingold says it's a calculated risk by many dealers who come to North Dakota. There's a chance to make tens of thousands of dollars, but if they're caught and convicted, dealers may only serve a portion of their sentences. "I like to be optimistic. But there are still record seizures of fentanyl pills happening at the southern border, so I think we'll keep seeing fentanyl cases. Our job is to enforce the law. But I think we'll be prosecuting fentanyl cases for a long time, unfortunately," Ingold said. Melissa Henke with the Heartview Foundation says fentanyl use spread even more during COVID when people no longer had to buy it on the street. "Fentanyl is made in clandestine labs, and it's extremely potent. All of a sudden, it was much easier, you could just order it off the dark web and have it delivered to your home," Dr. Henke said. "For people who were interested, they could order a pill press off Amazon, or a pill binder on Amazon. Pretty soon, they have a whole manufacturing outfit in their house. And they didn't need a field somewhere to grow and harvest heroin. So that really monopolized the market." "You have hundreds of thousands of these pills. Many tens of millions of dollars in this trade right here in our state. It's a public health crisis. It's a law enforcement crisis," Wrigley said. "A lot of times, if somebody overdoses, we don't get notified because they're just Narcanning themselves, where they should be calling us. At least getting to the hospital," Officer Benke said. And that means officers like Benke will stay busy, even on the day shift. Wrigley tells KX News that last year, the Metro Area Narcotics Task Force around Bismarck and Mandan seized around 65,000 fentanyl pills and around 183 grams of fentanyl powder. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Today's Top Stories SIGN UP NOW ...read more read less