Olympia police say they found more than 100 fentanyl pills and various other illicit items in a vehicle belonging to a man accused of shoplifting last week.
The 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of theft and booked into the Thurston County jail on June 28. He is being held in lieu of $6,000 bail, according to the jail roster.
In the suspect's vehicle, police reported finding $1,500 of stolen merchandise from local businesses, a stolen gun, $1,400 in counterfeit currency, and the fentanyl pills, according to a Twitter post by the Olympia Police Department.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that's 50-100 times stronger than morphine and often mixed with other substances, sometimes unknowingly. Local overdoses on fentanyl more than doubled between 2020 and 2021, The Olympian previously reported.
Police uncovered the items in the course of arresting the man for stealing packages of lighters from a convenience store, Lt. Paul Lower told The Olympian.
"Good work on our patrol staff," Lower said. "In recognizing suspicious things while talking to a suspect of a theft... it led to the seizure of quite a bit of narcotics."
That day, a convenience store employee called dispatch at around 5 p.m. to report the lighter theft, Lower said. Officers then responded to the store on the 1000 block of Plum Street Southeast and found the man among a group of people in the parking lot, he said.
Police noticed a bulge in his pockets and asked him to remove whatever items he had in there, Lower said. As he brought out the lighter packages, Lower said a lip balm container fell to the ground and made an odd rattling sound.
The man told police it contained some pills, Lower said. Upon closer inspection, he said an officer determined they were fentanyl pills.
The officer also noticed a large pile of clothing with price and security tags in the man's vehicle, Lower said. They arrested the man on suspicion of theft and some outstanding warrants. They also towed his vehicle, he said.
The next day, Lower said police secured a search warrant for the vehicle and seized the suspicious clothing. They later determined those items had been stolen from Value Village, Marshalls and Walmart, he said.
Police also found a safe inside the vehicle that contained the other illicit items, Lower said.
No other people at the scene were arrested, he added. The circumstances and details of the case remain under investigation, Lower said.
