Manteca is the latest city in San Joaquin County to be the scene for a traffic stop that resulted in the discovery of tens of thousands of illegal fentanyl pills – each one with the power to kill somebody.

According to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were traveling northbound on Highway 99 when they observed a Kia SUV commit several vehicle code violations – initiating a traffic stop where the three subjects inside of the vehicle from Southern California reportedly “showed signs of criminal activity.”

Officers pulled the car over near the Yosemite Avenue exit from Highway 99.

The deputies called in Rango, and when the agency’s all-star drug detection dog – who discovered 80,000 fentanyl pills back in March and another 12,000 just a few weeks later – alerted on the vehicle. Officers conducted a search and found the narcotics concealed on top of the spare tire underneath the vehicle.

All three occupants were arrested and booked in the San Joaquin County Jail on charges of transportation of narcotics for sale, the sale of narcotics, and conspiracy.

According to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office, Rango was rewarded for his find with a chicken nugget Happy Meal on his way home after his shift.

Both of Rango’s other big busts took place in Ripon in the area of the Jack Tone Road and Highway 99 interchange where there are a number of truck stops.

While most of the counterfeit fentanyl pills – which are most commonly colored and pressed and stamped to look like 30mg Oxycodone pills – are made in laboratories in Mexico and smuggled into the United States, the trip across the border is only the beginning of their journey.

Because Highway 99 serves as a major arterial thoroughfare for California – providing access to large valley cities like Bakersfield, Fresno, and Modesto – the route has become a major smuggling route for people running drugs through The Golden State.

Multiple agencies including the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office have made previous busts of people smuggling large quantities of the illegal drugs through the area – almost always by people from outside of the area that are simply passing through on the way to their destination.

Local law enforcement agencies and the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office have pledged to come down hard on fentanyl traffickers in response to the addiction epidemic that the pills have exacerbated – launching a media campaign to remind the public that “one pill can kill” when dealing with the illicit substance.