Mike Whaley knows what it’s like to live with crushing grief.

Whaley of Lake Villa has not been the same since his son, his only child, Jacob “Whales” Whaley, died Feb. 14, 2024.

“Losing a child was so unnatural,” Whaley said. “It leaves a hole in you. It’s a scar. Even when people think you are doing OK, you are not doing OK. It is something that never heals.”

An artist who loved music and was described as loving and funny, Jacob was just 27 years old when he fell prey to the threat posed by counterfeit pills, street drugs that buyers do not know contain deadly doses of fentanyl.

Police said Whaley traveled to Wisconsin and bought “Percocet 30 mg/oxycodone pills”, which wound up being fentanyl-laced counterfeits. Whaley died from the adverse effects of fentanyl.

Ashton Cowart of Kenosha, Wisconsin, is charged with drug-induced homicide in Jacob Whaley’s death. If convicted, Cowart faces up to 30 years in prison.

“It goes deep for everyone,” Whaley said. “Unfortunately, it is a bigger problem than the average American understands.”

How big is the problem?

“Counterfeit pills are one of the most dangerous drug threats we face,” said Drug Enforcement Administration Chicago Field Division Special Agent in Charge Todd Smith. “They’re designed to look legitimate but often contain fentanyl in deadly, unpredictable amounts. One pill can be fatal.”

Purchased unlawfully, the drugs often are stamped as M30s, Xanax, Percocet, Oxycodone, Vicodin or Adderall. It doesn’t take much for added fentanyl to turn deadly: A lethal dose of fentanyl is equivalent in size to a few grains of salt, according to information from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

And the chance that a buyer can unwittingly end up with one is growing.

Luis Agostini, DEA public information officer for the division that includes northern and central Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, said the DEA Chicago Field Division seized 1.7 million counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl in 2025.

That is up from 1.2 million in 2024 and just 54,900 in 2020, according to the DEA’s Chicago Field Division.

One example of the continued threat and how it is playing out in Northern Illinois happened in 2024, when a mother and son from Arizona - described by prosecutors as “carriers” for a Mexican cartel - smuggled 120,000 counterfeit pills into McHenry County.

Despite the blue pills being stamped as oxycodone, they tested positive for fentanyl and had a street value of $1.8 million to $3.6 million, prosecutors said during initial court appearances for Gloria Gastelum, 55, and her son German Vargas Jr., 33, of Tucson.

“They had enough pills to kill 120,000 people,” Assistant State’s Attorney Stephen Gregorowicz said.

[ Arizona mother and son accused of smuggling 120,000 fentanyl pills into McHenry County, arrested in sting ]

Fentanyl’s growing appearance has to do with the use of opioids. Specific to Illinois, an unclassified 2024 DEA report said the opioid threat was of grave concern, “particularly regarding the proliferation of fake oxycodone pills.” Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, with its growing use pinned on a couple of reasons, among them as a substitute for heroin.

Fentanyl, which is cheaper to make than heroin, is mixed with other drugs because it enhances and prolongs a drug’s effect. It’s that use which is leading to a huge surge in overdoses in recent years, the CDC said.

Those deaths can happen anywhere to anyone.

In 2022, 28-year-old Amy LaShelle of Thomson, in Carroll County, was the victim of a fentanyl-induced homicide. Saidrick Thomas, 23, of nearby Savanna, was charged in 2024 with her death. Thomas pleaded guilty in November to drug-induced homicide and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to court records.

[ Savanna fentanyl dealer charged with drug-induced homicide ]

And in southwest Joliet, Dametreas Triplett, 23, is charged with drug-induced homicide in the death of a 15-year-old girl.

In 2023, Faithe Conley, a freshman at Joliet West High School, was having a sleepover with a 15-year-old friend when the friend allegedly contacted Triplett through Snapchat to buy Percocet pills, Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Kevin Kocim said. The pills were stamped as Percocet, authorities said.

[ Joliet man charged with drug-induced homicide of teen girl ]

Both girls took the pills, the prosecutor said, and the next morning Conley’s friend found Conley unresponsive with foam coming from her mouth. She was pronounced dead at the scene, the prosecutor said. Authorities said Conley died from fentanyl intoxication.

Where does fentanyl come from?

“Historically, the counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl that we have seen throughout our communities are produced in Mexico en masse by the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation [CJNG] drug trafficking cartels,” Agostini said.

The pills are made with chemical precursors imported from Chinese pharmaceutical companies, he said.

The cartels then use their distribution network to traffic the counterfeit pills throughout the U.S., he said.

Gastelum and Vargas – who have since pleaded guilty to fentanyl possession charges and have been sentenced to prison for 17 and 13 years, respectively – were part of that network, prosecutors said.

Coincidentally, Agostini said there has been an increase in the domestic production of counterfeit pills as well. Drug dealers use fentanyl powder trafficked from Mexico to the U.S.

Fighting fentanyl

“Any pill you buy off the street has the potential to have fentanyl in it,” said Laura Fry, executive director of Live4Lali, an Arlington Heights-based nonprofit with a mission to help prevent and raise awareness about substance use among individuals, families and communities – without shame.

The organization provides outreach services and access to harm-reduction items, including fentanyl test strips, and will send items through the mail if requested. Teams travel in “The Stigma Crushing” purple truck to Lake, McHenry, Winnebago, Boone, Suburban Cook, Kane and DuPage counties.

Jordan Silberman of Palatine, a volunteer with Live4Lali, speaks loudly about the dangers of counterfeit pills.

In 2022, his brother, Matthew David Silberman, died in a Rolling Meadows motel from a fentanyl-laced, pressed-pill overdose. He was 32.

Jordan said he also has been “involved in every part of” the drug world and has fought drug addiction for 14 years. At times, he’s sold drugs to pay for his addiction.

Jordan, now 32, said he is sharing his story “because the world needs to know about this [expletive].”

Jordan has purchased Percocet pills from dealers on the street, where they are called “blues” and can cost from $2 to $20. Users buy them from dealers because they are easy to get and cheap, he said.

Jordan warns that when buying pills on the street, “you are playing Russian roulette every time you take one of those pills.”

Like Live4Lali, Perfectly Flawed Foundation, a not-for-profit organization based in La Salle, specializes in harm-reduction, overdose prevention and peer support in North Central Illinois.

Executive director Luke Tomsha said Perfectly Flawed can test a suspicious substance anonymously through its new Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy drug-checking program – without law enforcement involvement. Lab results are available in seven to 10 days.

“The alternative is finding out from the coroner in post-mortem toxicology reports after the person is no longer with us, which is traditionally how we gathered data,” Tomsha said. “But by then it’s too late, and tragedy has already occurred.”

Such groups also provide Narcan (naloxone), an opioid-reversing medication that can save a life if given within minutes of a suspected overdose.

In communities across the state, including Dixon, police officers are supplied with Narcan.

An uptick in heroin use more than 10 years ago has put Dixon police, likely the first to respond to a call for an unconscious person, on alert.

Dixon Police Chief Ryan Bivins said Narcan is administered right away, sometimes twice. The officer then passes along that information to the ambulance crew.

Bivins said administering Narcan can be done without fear of harming someone. If the patient doesn’t need it, there are no negative side effects.

But time is of the essence. Bivins said people who are with someone who appears to have overdosed need to call for help right away. A person who calls Dixon police will not face any penalties for having been with a person who was using drugs that led to the overdose, he said.

In December, the DEA launched “Fentanyl Free America,” a comprehensive enforcement initiative and public awareness campaign aimed at reducing both the supply and demand for fentanyl, and emphasizes the importance of public engagement.

DEA encourages everyone, from community leaders, clergy, educators, parents, physicians, pharmacists, and law enforcement, to take an active role in raising awareness by protecting others through education, preventing fentanyl poisonings by understanding the dangers, and supporting those impacted.