A continued grip on America
Fentanyl continues its grip upon America’s compulsion for illicit drugs. On April 2, the Attorney General of California Central District announced that three Sinaloa, Mexican nationals pleaded guilty for over distributing/ over one million fentanyl pills following a 2023 arrest in Los Angeles County. They will be sentenced on August 13, facing a minimum 10 years in federal prison.
The arrest was a multi-agency affair involving the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) of Los Angeles, police forces of El Monte, Fullerton, Hawthorne, as well as the California National Guard. Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that the National Guard alone confiscated some 62,000 pounds of fentanyl in the 2023 calendar, primarily at the state’s ports of entry.
In other drug raids across the country, 100,000 pills were impounded in tandem with arrests in North Carolina’s Rutherford County on March 13. Kentucky documented arrests and seizures of significant amounts of fentanyl made in the cities of Lexington on March 18, and Oak Grove on April 4, while In Michigan, some 100,000 pills worth an estimated $4.5 million on April 2, in a suburb of Detroit, along with $ 150,000 in cash, pill presses, and other drug paraphernalia.
Finally on April 5 nearly a million dollars in fentanyl was seized in a drug bust by Lafayette, La. police, along with cash, firearms, and other miscellaneous narcotics, and related paraphernalia for a total of $1.5 million.
While fentanyl consumption/trafficking has increased over the past decade, methamphetamine remains the illicit intoxicant most commonly trafficked.
“Law enforcement encounters more methamphetamine - especially in the Western U.S. - than fentanyl kilograms,” says Matthew Allen, Special Agent in Charge, Los Angeles field office of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
After historic highs in 2022, the numbers of fentanyl kilograms confiscated dipped slightly in 2023, but pricing declined as well, indicating the availability of this synthetic opioid has increased. “We don’t draw the inference that there’s a lack of availability, “ notes Allen.
“Mexican cartels are responsible for almost all the production, importation and wholesale distribution of fentanyl,” he continues.
In the last quarter of 2023, gossip circulated that the “Chapitos,” the four sons of incarcerated drugs lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán who now helm the Sinaloa Cartel, issued a decree banning the production, sale or trafficking of fentanyl under penalty for death, a rumor Allen dismisses.
“The DEA does not believe there is any truth to this rumor. However, there is a possibility the Chapitos may have issued a decree banning the production of fentanyl by anyone not under their control,” he said.
In addition to narcotic distribution, cartels like the Sinaloas have their own media/propaganda offices.
“Cartels often use violence, extortion and bribery to intentionally put out disinformation and to control the types of stories written about them in Mexico,” Allen added.
Mexican cartels, and their Chinese suppliers of the chemicals needed to produce artificial intoxicants remain the principal purveyors of drugs into the United States, but India is making inroads into this lucrative market, a trend Allen acknowledges.
