A Sunset man was arrested Thursday after an investigation into what St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz is calling the most elaborate pill mill operation in parish history.
Detectives with the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office’s Narcotics Enforcement Team served a search warrant on 43-year-old Benjamin Pittman Sr.’s residence at 256 Rue Destin in the Sunset area after an extended surveillance and investigative operation.
Inside, investigators “located a major pill manufacturing facility and distribution hub inside the residence, which contained different pill presses and mixers for the illegal manufacturing of pills,” Guidroz said in a statement.
Detectives recovered four guns, $18,660 in cash, packaging materials, cutting agents to complete the manufacturing of the pills and suspected drugs, including suspected crack cocaine, marijuana, illegally manufactured Xanax, hydrocodone, assorted pills and 5.2 pounds of fentanyl. The number of assorted pills is approximately 1,875, the sheriff said.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration considers 2 mg of fentanyl a potentially lethal dose; the fentanyl confiscated from Pittman’s residence was equivalent to 2.3 million mg.
Public health and law enforcement officials warn that fentanyl is driving rising fatal overdose numbers nationwide.
In 2021, over 106,000 people died from fatal drug overdoses in the United States. Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, led to 70,601 of the reported overdose deaths in 2021, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is, by far, the most significant and largest fentanyl confiscation and also the most elaborate pill manufacturing operation in the history of St. Landry Parish,” Guidroz said in the statement.
Pittman was arrested on four counts of illegal carrying of a weapon in the presence of controlled dangerous substances and four counts of possession of a firearm by a felon.
He was also arrested on individual counts of possession with intent to distribute a Schedule I drug, manufacturing of a Schedule III drug, possession with intent to distribute a Schedule III drug, transactions involving proceeds from drug offenses, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession with intent to distribute a Schedule II drug.
Pittman’s bond is currently set at $150,250, Guidroz’s statement said.