SEQUOYAH COUNTY, Okla. — A Maryland man driving through Sequoyah County in November 2019 was sentenced to 10 years in prison after nearly 10,000 fentanyl pills were found in his car during a traffic stop.
The United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced the sentencing of Jose Sanchez on May 23, 2023.
Sanchez, who was a resident of Maryland at the time of his arrest, was sentenced to 120 months in prison on one count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, the district attorney's office said.
According to officials, a Sequoyah County deputy pulled over Sanchez for speeding on Interstate 40 on Nov. 18, 2019, when the deputy found a vacuum-sealed bag of 9,648 fentanyl pills made to look like oxycodone.
The pills were tested for fentanyl and confirmed to be counterfeit oxycodone which contained over a kilogram of fentanyl— an amount U.S. District Attorney Christopher Wilson says was "thousands of lethal doses of fentanyl."
“Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, and a single dose of only two milligrams is potentially lethal," Wilson said.
Sanchez will remain in U.S. Marshal custody pending transportation to serve his prison sentence.
Watch 5NEWS on YouTube.
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com and detail which story you're referring to.