CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police say they have arrested more than two-dozen people in connection with sales of heroin laced with the painkiller fentanyl, which is being blamed for a sharp increase in overdose deaths.
Police said in a news release Friday that a series of raids took place throughout the day Thursday and had led to 25 arrests by late that night. The arrests followed a series of undercover drug purchases of heroin laced with fentanyl.
Fentanyl is mixed with heroin to make the drug more potent.
Authorities have blamed the combination for increases in heroin-overdose deaths in Chicago and other areas of the country. Dozens of people have fatally overdosed on fentanyl-laced heroin in the Chicago area in the past year and a half.
