SALT LAKE CITY – A routine early morning traffic stop on Interstate 15 in Utah quickly turned into something bigger last November.
Dashboard and body camera footage showed a Utah Highway Patrol trooper stopping a car with two men inside. The trooper approached them and informed them that the light above their rear license plate was not working and that dark tint on vehicle windows is not legal in Utah.
“Smelled burnt weed in the car,” the officer is heard saying quietly to himself as he walks back to his vehicle.
The officer’s suspicions grew when the driver told him he was on his way to Utah to visit a cousin, but he was unsure where the cousin lived and he said he couldn’t remember his cousin’s name.
The driver then gave the police officer permission to search the car.
“Okay, we got them,” the cop says to a colleague as he pulls out bags of small blue pills from a hiding place in the back of the car. “They’re loaded.”
The police found an estimated 18,000 fentanyl tablets hidden in a so-called “deep trap” – an empty bag inside a vehicle.
An estimated 18,000 fentanyl pills, firearms and ammunition were seized by UHP following a traffic stop on I-15 in November 2023. (UHP)
The discovery highlights a disturbing trend known to law enforcement but perhaps not to many citizens: vast quantities of illegal and deadly drugs are transported into and through Utah on I-15 every day.
“Our greatest threat”
“Interstate 15 is the busiest north-south drug corridor in the western United States,” said Dustin Gillespie, deputy special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Utah.
Gillespie told KSL investigators that I-15 was the easiest and fastest route for Mexico-based Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels to smuggle drugs north and eventually east.
“When these drug shipments come on Interstate 15, they often continue on to Utah, Montana, Canada and places like Alberta,” Gillespie said. “Or they turn east on Interstate 70 and continue east toward the Atlantic coast.”
While the DEA investigates trafficking in a number of illegal drugs, Gillespie said fentanyl is its primary concern.
“It’s our biggest threat here in Utah,” he said.
In June, the DEA announced another record for fentanyl pill seizures in Utah in just six months. Between January 1 and June 30 of this year, the agency seized more than 774,000 fentanyl pills, surpassing the previous record set last year: 664,200 pills seized in Utah in all of 2023.
“More fentanyl is likely coming into the United States, particularly Utah,” Gillespie said.
“We know which road they are coming from”
“We know where the drugs are coming from. We know which road they’re coming from. We know they’re in our community,” said Major Jeff Nigbur, deputy chief of the Utah Highway Patrol.
He said 42% of the agency’s drug seizures occur on I-15, far more than any other road in Utah. And since October, the UHP has seized more than 103,000 fentanyl pills.
According to UHP, these pills would have cost $25 to $30 each five years ago. Today, however, a fentanyl pill on the street in Utah costs just $2 to $3, according to the agency. This is a sign that more fentanyl is being trafficked through the state than ever before, investigators say.
“Most of the drug seizures we see on I-15 have direct ties to Mexican cartels,” Nigbur said.
He also said the agency made two of its largest seizures ever this year – one involving about 750 kilograms of marijuana and the other 111 kilograms of methamphetamine.
“It gives you a general idea of the amount of drugs that are on that street,” he said.
Dashboard camera footage shows a sniffer dog raising the alarm after sniffing around a vehicle stopped on I-15 in 2023. (UHP)
Nigbur said there is no way to determine how many drugs are still reaching their destination.
“I would imagine we can only get a small percentage off the streets,” he said.
But every shipment stopped by UHP and other Utah agencies does not enter the community.
“I think we’re on the front line because we’re usually picking up loads en route before they reach their destination,” he said. “And that’s a good thing.”
“A rolling pharmacy”
“You never know what you’re going to find,” said UHP Sergeant Jeff Blankenagel, one of the officers on the front lines, during a recent patrol on I-15.
From Nephi, KSL investigators accompanied Blankenagel one afternoon as he stopped drivers for traffic violations.
UHP Sgt. Jeff Blankenagel patrols I-15 in July 2024. (Josh Szymanik, KSL TV)
He’s part of the UHP’s drug enforcement team, which now has 10 full-time employees. It used to be part-time until a budget increase from the Utah Legislature last year caused the team to grow. Still, they cover hundreds of miles – not just I-15, but Interstate 70 and Interstate 80 as well.
Through years of traffic controls and observing millions of passing cars, Blankenagel has learned to recognize subtle behaviors in drivers that can be used to identify drug couriers, he says.
“It’s this desire not to be seen,” he said, pointing out that drug loads can be present in any vehicle and with any type of driver.
“They’re like a pharmacy on wheels,” he said. “I had a car that had methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin, ecstasy and Xanax in it.”
According to Blankenagel, task force members are trained to conduct stops in a way that does not violate the rights of those stopped while finding enough probable cause to search vehicles they suspect are suspicious. They often use police dogs to search vehicles they suspect may contain drugs, and they are experts at finding unlikely places to hide drugs in vehicles.
Nigbur stressed that while the team is responsible for a large portion of the drug shipments intercepted by UHP, its focus is on combating all crimes – it has also stopped cases of human trafficking, fraud and more.
“I have never seen this before”
During a stop last October, dashboard and body camera footage provided to KSL investigators showed a UHP K9 sounding the alarm after sniffing around a vehicle, giving officers probable cause to conduct a search. They found heroin and cocaine in a shoebox.
Body camera footage shows UHP officers discovering drugs in a shoebox after a traffic stop on I-15 in October 2023. (UHP)
“There’s your load of drugs,” a police officer can be heard saying in body camera footage from another stop last year as he pulls a child seat out of a car.
A false bottom in the car seat was filled with heroin. This was something new even for experienced police officers.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” remarked another police officer.
In a recording obtained by KSL investigators, one of the drug couriers arrested during the check in which drugs were found in a car seat admitted in an interview with authorities that he had made about ten similar deliveries in the six months prior to his arrest.
All of the people arrested during the checks reviewed by KSL entered into a plea deal. Most served time in prison, but their sentences were suspended in favor of probation.
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