The Mandalorian Baby Yoda Toy Used to Smuggle Drugs

File this under “this is definitely not the way”. In Rutherford County, Tennessee, 176 illegal Fentanyl pills were discovered inside a Star Wars: The Mandalorian Baby Yoda toy that was intended to be sold in the county by a man from Michigan. According to Rutherford County Sheriff’s Captain Britt Reed, the discovery of the pills – which were made to resemble tablets of Roxicodone, a brand name of the opioid pain medication oxycodone – was made on August 27th. The suspect, Zave Garry has since been charged with possession and was out on bond for a similar crime in another county two weeks earlier at the time of his arrest. Rutherford County is located roughly 40 miles southeast of Nashville.

“These non-pharmaceutically produced pills are a true danger to the user due in part to inconsistent production methods along with inherent dangers of Fentanyl,” Reed said in a social media post (via WKRN.)

According to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, Gary was charged with felony possession of Schedule II and Schedule VI drugs and misdemeanor unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia. He was held on a $150,000 bond due to having been out on bond for a similar crime in Coffee County at the time of his arrest and a hearing for the charges was set for Tuesday, September 7th. In Coffee County, Garry had been found with 157 of the same pills. According to the post, investigators had allegedly linked Garry to an intercepted shipment of around 1000 fentanyl pills intended to be sold in the community.

Fentanyl is a powerful opioid sued as a pain medication as well as with other medications for anesthesia. A synthetic opioid, Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine according to the Centers for Disease Control. When it is prescribed for patient use, it is typically to treat severe pain, including that experienced by cancer patients. In recent years, the drug has seen increasing demand as a recreational drug, but due to its potency has a great risk of overdose, a risk that increases with illegally made Fentanyl for the reasons Reed listed.