UPDATE: 10-17-2025, 9 a.m.
The Montana Highway Patrol has issued a correction to the social media post, correcting the number of arrests to 34.
According to a release, MHP troopers conducted an interdiction operation in Butte from Oct. 7-14.
During the operation, troopers work with the US Border Patrol and Air National Guard Counterdrug Aviation.
"Montana is no place for illegal activity. I am proud of the work that our troopers do day in and day out to get drugs and criminals off our streets to keep our communities safe. We couldn’t do it without the help of our partner agencies," said MHP Col. Kurt Sager.
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First Report
BUTTE - A recent Montana Highway Patrol interdiction operation in Butte ended with 34 arrests and a large amount of drugs.
According to a social media post, troopers seized nearly 25 grams of fentanyl powder, 11 pounds of meth, 260 pounds of marijuana, and $75,000 of illicit money.
Earlier this year, a special agent with the DEA said Montana is a fentanyl pipeline.
“Really, if you can imagine it, they have found a way to sneak it across. Once it’s across the border, Interstate 25 (which runs from Arizona to northern Wyoming) is a direct pipeline right up here to Montana,” said Special Agent Jonathan Pullen with the DEA’s Rocky Mountain Field Division.
“A pill in Mexico is produced in Mexico (costs) from two to four cents. That same pill in Denver might sell between two and five dollars per pill—an incredible markup when it only costs two cents to make it. By the time that pill makes it to the Blackfeet Indian reservation, it can be sold for as high as $120 for one pill. An incredible markup, incredible amount of money to be made by these criminal groups that are selling this poison,” Pullen said.
Pullen warns that just one fentanyl pill is capable of killing.
“Half of the pills that the DEA seized last year across the United States had a deadly dose of fentanyl in it, so fentanyl itself is incredibly deadly. Only two milligrams is enough to kill me or you,” he said.
