Anaheim police arrested five people and seized about 50 bottles of suspected Xanax and nearly $250,000 in cash after an undercover investigation at the Anaheim Marketplace, according to CBS News. ABC7 reported five arrests and did not mention the nearly $250,000 cash seizure.
Police said narcotics detectives served search warrants at three businesses inside the marketplace after a lengthy investigation into the alleged sale of prescription pills without prescriptions. Investigators used undercover minors to determine whether vendors would sell them the pills, according to the reports. The reported cash seizure and the undercover purchases are separate elements of the operation; the available accounts do not establish that the cash came from those transactions.
The pills were identified by police as Farmapram, a foreign brand of alprazolam, the generic form of Xanax. Police alleged that the bottles contained roughly 90 pills and were sold without prescriptions. Anaheim police arrested 42-year-old Nilva Cana at her home and identified her as the suspected owner of the three businesses, according to ABC7. Those allegations have not been presented here as adjudicated facts.
What remains unknown
Investigators said laboratory testing was still needed to determine whether the seized pills contained fentanyl or other illicit substances. The reports cited here do not provide final test results, detailed charges or case outcomes for the other four people arrested. They also do not establish whether any of the pills were counterfeit or whether anyone suffered an overdose connected to the marketplace.
County data provides scale, not a case link
The Orange County Health Care Agency’s 2022 report said drug- and alcohol-related overdoses resulted in more than 5,500 hospitalizations and nearly 700 deaths among county residents each year. The same report found that 78.6% of coroner-investigated overdose deaths were accidental, 51.8% involved prescription drugs and 66.8% were related to opioid use, according to the agency.
The county also reported that its opioid-overdose death rate nearly tripled, from 7.9 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2017 to 23.2 in 2021, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency. That broader opioid trend does not show that the Anaheim pills contained fentanyl, does not measure benzodiazepine-specific changes and does not establish a connection to the marketplace investigation.
