Culiacan, Mexico – Cartel operatives arrived at the homeless encampment armed with syringes filled with the latest fentanyl preparations. The offer was simple, according to two men living in a camp in northwest Mexico: up to US$30 (S$40.80) would be given to anyone who wanted to inject themselves with the concoction.
One of the men, Pedro López Camacho, said he volunteered many times and was sometimes visited daily by operatives. López-Camacho said they watched the drugs take effect, taking photos and filming reactions. He survived, but he said he saw many people who didn’t.
“If it’s really strong, it can cause unconsciousness and even death,” López Camacho said of the drugs administered to him and others. “The people here have died.”
This is how far Mexican cartels control the fentanyl business.
Global efforts to crack down on synthetic opioids are making it difficult for these criminal groups to find the compounds they need to make their drugs. The original source, China, has restricted exports of the necessary raw materials, prompting cartels to come up with highly dangerous new ways to keep fentanyl produced and potent.
Cartel members say the experiments involve combining drugs with a wide range of additives, including animal sedatives and other dangerous narcotics.
Criminals (often referred to as cooks) who manufacture fentanyl for cartels are injecting the experimental mixture into rabbits and chickens as well as human subjects to test the results. states.
If the rabbit survives for more than 90 seconds, the drug is considered too weak to be sold to Americans, according to six cooks and two U.S. embassy officials who monitor the cartel’s activities. U.S. officials said that when Mexican law enforcement raided fentanyl labs, they sometimes found facilities filled with the carcasses of animals used for testing.
“They are conducting experiments in the style of Dr. Death,” said Renato Sales, Mexico’s former national security commissioner. “It’s about knowing the effectiveness of a substance. It’s like, ‘If you use this, they’ll die, but if you use this, they won’t die. That’s how we adjust it.’
To understand how criminal organizations have adapted to the crackdown, The New York Times observed that fentanyl is manufactured not only in laboratories but also in secure locations, and found that the number directly involved in the production of the drug I spent several months interviewing people.
They included nine cooks, three chemistry students, two senior operatives and a recruiter working for the Sinaloa cartel, which the U.S. government blames for fueling the synthetic opioid epidemic. .
The cartel officials spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
One cook said he recently started mixing fentanyl with an anesthetic commonly used in oral surgery. Another said the best additive he found was a sedative for dogs and cats.
Another cook demonstrated to a Times reporter how to manufacture fentanyl at a cartel hideout in northwestern Mexico’s Sinaloa state. He said if the batch is too weak, he adds xylazine, an animal tranquilizer known on the street as “trunk.” U.S. authorities have warned that the combination could be deadly.
“If you inject this into a hen and it takes a minute or a minute and a half for it to die, that means it worked very well,” the cook said. “If it doesn’t die, or if it takes too long to die, we add xylazine.”
A cartel chemist demonstrates how to make fentanyl to New York Times reporters at a hideout somewhere in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.Photo: NYTIMES
The Cooks’ account is consistent with Mexican government data showing increased use of fentanyl mixed with xylazine and other substances, especially in cities near the U.S. border.
Dr. Alexis Bojorge Estrada, deputy director of Mexico’s Mental Health and Addictions Commission, said: “The illicit market makes even more money off drugs by cutting them with different things, such as xylazine. “There is,” he said.
“By fortifying it, you need less product and you get more benefit,” Dr. Bogiorgi said of fentanyl.
US drug researchers have also noticed an increase in what they call a “weird and troubling” form of fentanyl. Testing of hundreds of samples in the United States has found an increasing number of compounds found in fentanyl on the streets.
“This is a very Wild West experiment,” said Dr. Caleb Banta Green, a research professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine who helped coordinate testing of more than 580 samples of the drug sold as fentanyl in Washington state in 2024. Ta.
He called it “absolute chaos.”
experiment
The synthetic opioids that reach America’s streets often begin in cartel laboratories, where precision isn’t necessarily a priority, Cook says. They mix containers of chemicals in rudimentary kitchens and are exposed to toxic substances that cause some cooks to hallucinate, vomit, faint, and even die.
The cartel actively recruits chemistry college students to work as cooks. One of the students employed by the cartel revealed that to test the cartel’s prescriptions, the cartel brought in drug users living on the streets and injected them with synthetic opioids. According to the student, no one has died so far, but there have been defective products.
“Some people started convulsing and foaming at the mouth,” the student said.
Mistakes by cooks were met with severe punishment, she added. The armed men locked the offenders in rooms with rats and snakes and left them there for long periods without food or water.
Chefs and senior operatives say the Sinaloa cartel is a decentralized organization, a collection of so many disparate cells that no single leader or faction can fully control the group’s fentanyl production. He explained.
Some cooks said they wanted to create a standardized product that wouldn’t kill users. Some said they viewed the lethality of their products not as a problem but as a marketing strategy.
In a U.S. federal indictment against the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín Loera Guzmán (aka El Chapo), who heads a powerful faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, prosecutors say that drug tests for the Sinaloa Cartel revealed that addicts Even after his death, the group said it shipped fentanyl to the United States. Mexico.
Instead of scaring people, cartel members, drug users and experts say many American users are rushing to buy especially deadly products they know will get them high. states.
“One person dies and 10 more addicts are born,” said one senior cartel official. “We’re not worried about them.”
Chickens and rabbits for sale at a market in Culiacan, Mexico. Animals are often used by Sinaloa cartel cooks and chemists to test the lethality of drugs.Photo: NYTIMES
boss
When the hens stopped crouching, the boss realized something was wrong. He said he had been involved in the drug business since the age of 12, when he began an apprenticeship at a heroin processing site.
The soft-spoken boss, now 22, said he taught himself how to make illegal drugs by studying the older, more experienced men he worked with. Eventually, he started his own business with a friend.
His boss said his business grew quickly and he was soon operating three fentanyl labs. He said he made millions from this drug.
Every time he goes to the lab, he brings four or five rabbits from a local pet store. If the fentanyl his people make is strong enough, he has to inject and kill just one to make sure it’s suitable for sale.
Two Sinaloa pet store employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from cartel members, confirmed that the cheapest rabbits are known to be purchased for drug testing.
Boss’ other subjects are hens raised on a nearby farm. Two U.S. embassy officials said many fentanyl cooks test their products on chickens.
Until recently, the director said that every time he injected chickens with fentanyl, they either died, collapsed, or staggered around like they were drunk. All local residents knew not to eat the farm’s chickens or eggs.
But recently, the animals weren’t showing strong reactions to the drug, even though his process hadn’t changed.
His employees logged the same hours in the same modest laboratory in the mountains, starting at 5 a.m. and sleeping there for days on end. They worked with the same equipment: laboratory shakers, trays, large containers, and blenders for mixing the final product.
The company chief said the company ultimately concluded that the cause was that the chemical raw materials supplied from China were “very diluted.” The result was a two-tiered product.
“It’s too weak,” he said.
To solve the problem, the president first tried combining fentanyl with the short-acting anesthetic ketamine, but said users did not like the bitter taste produced when they smoked the mixture. Procaine, a local anesthetic often used to numb small areas during dental procedures, was much more effective when added, he said.
When asked if he felt guilty about producing drugs that cause mass deaths, his boss said all he was doing was giving his customers what they wanted.
“If there weren’t people in America who wanted to get high, we wouldn’t be selling anything,” he says. “It’s their fault, not ours. We just take advantage of the situation.”
Customs and Border Protection agents test drugs seized by Border Patrol agents at a laboratory in San Diego.Photo: NYTIMES
cook
One cook we spoke to said he got into the fentanyl business several years ago to pay off his mounting debts. Initially, the former store owner regularly fell ill from exposure to smoke. He said the armed cartel members in charge could not tolerate this.
“When you start working, you might throw up at first, then take a break and get some air,” says the cook, but soon “one of you will yell at you to get back to work.”
He was shot dead by his boss just because he didn’t answer a question right away, and his shirt was pulled up to reveal the scar on his abdomen.
He is constantly experimenting with ways to make fentanyl more potent, tweaking the formula and testing it on his lab assistants, many of whom become addicted in the process. If the product turns out to be good, he gives it to his boss to try.
The chef said he knows that all the improvisation creates an unpredictable product. Each batch he makes is different, he said, meaning customers buying the exact same fentanyl pills could end up receiving vastly different doses from week to week.
He never fully revealed his job to his family, simply saying he was going to work and returning a few weeks later with a large sum of cash. He believes that money and the fear evident on his expression will deter any questions.
“There are no retirees here,” the cook said, adding that the cartel would likely kill him if he tried to stop him. “There is only work and death.” new york times
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