San Francisco police have arrested four people suspected of selling the drugs that led to the fatal overdose of 16-year-old Dante Lacourte in April, Police Chief Derrick Lew announced Monday.
Investigators say Dante died after taking a counterfeit pill containing cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid that has recently appeared in the city’s illicit drug supply and is roughly ten times stronger than fentanyl, according to law enforcement officials.
“Our investigators will stop at nothing to ensure deadly narcotics are taken off our streets and individuals who peddle them are arrested and held accountable,” Lew said.
Dante’s mother, Christina Lacourte, told The New York Times she found her son dead in his room when she went to wake him for school. “It just takes one pill,” she said.
How Investigators Traced the Pills
Police say they identified the pills found in Dante’s room on the day he died, then examined his phone to trace the alleged source of the drugs. Undercover officers subsequently purchased pills laced with the substance from suspects to build their case.
Last week, police raided three San Francisco homes and recovered roughly 20,000 pills suspected of containing the drug, along with 68.5 grams of MDMA, 6.5 grams of black tar heroin, a semi-automatic rifle, a semi-automatic pistol and $2,267 in cash.
The first arrests came on Sept. 8, when officers took 46-year-old Nicholas Wallace into custody at his O’Farrell Street home, seizing 34 pills believed to be oxycodone along with a quantity of cocaine. Parolee Sharonee Hyson, 44, was also arrested during that raid after being found with 11.7 grams of cocaine base and a loaded gun.
The following day, police raided homes belonging to Leander Pitts, 46, and Starr Lamare, 39, recovering more than 20,000 pills, including counterfeit Xanax, oxycodone, hydrocodone, cyclobenzaprine and fentanyl.
All four suspects were booked into San Francisco County Jail on charges including possession for sale of narcotics and firearms offenses.
A Drug Supply Growing More Dangerous
Officials say cychlorphine was first identified in the United States two years ago. “The first time DEA saw it was in 2024 at one of our labs down in Florida,” said Bob Beris, special agent in charge of the DEA’s San Francisco Field Division, in remarks to ABC.
Beris warned the drug isn’t limited to pills. “It can be mixed into a pill. It can be sold as a powder. It can be mixed in with cocaine. It can be sold as cocaine. Again, just because we haven’t seen some of these examples yet doesn’t mean it’s not out there,” he said.
Public health experts say existing drug-checking tools may fail to detect cychlorphine, and that it resists overdose-reversal medication like Narcan, often requiring multiple doses to work.
The pill Dante took also contained isotonitazene, known on the street as ISO, a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more potent than fentanyl, according to a San Francisco Health Department alert issued the month he died. “Even a single pill can contain a lethal dose,” the alert stated.
The department’s alert underscores growing concern among city officials that increasingly potent synthetic opioids are circulating undetected through San Francisco’s illegal drug supply, posing risks that go well beyond fentanyl alone.
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