US officials have blamed Mexican criminal gangs for the cross-border flood of fentanyl, and are calling on the government to do more to stop them.
But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has claimed that the main source of synthetic drugs is Asia. Just stamp it on the pill.
“In Mexico, we don’t produce fentanyl,” he told reporters this month. accused of being in
Several prominent US Republicans have accused Lopez Obrador of denying the broad reach of Mexican drug cartels. Fentanyl has climbed to the top of the Republican agendaCongressmen, former officials and presidential candidates are uniting over the once bigoted idea of using the US military to attack Mexican drug cartels and fentanyl labs.
The Biden administration is against the idea, but it’s almost certain to be a key Republican proposition as the two countries head into the 2024 presidential election.
Mexican officials have warned that unilateral U.S. intervention would have disastrous consequences.
“With one act, we will destroy all security cooperation between Mexico and the United States,” Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told The Washington Post. He said he thought such a strike was “unlikely”.
US frustration extends beyond the campaign trajectory. Federal prosecutors this month announced sweeping indictments revealing what they describe as a brazen attempt by the Sinaloa Cartel to flood the United States with fentanyl. A senior U.S. official openly suggested that Lopez Obrador was inconsistent with his country’s security forces. spoke on condition of anonymity.
Adding to the U.S. urgency is the fentanyl surge. 100 times more potent than morphine. roughly 107,000 overdose deaths in US in 2021two-thirds involved Synthetic opioids — primarily fentanyl. The drug is now the number one killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 49, according to the Post’s data analysis.
For U.S. officials, it’s clear who is producing that fentanyl.Seizure of drugs at the US-Mexico border triple from 2020And Mexican authorities seized tons of precursor chemicals used to make it.
Still, the Mexican government has found few fentanyl-manufacturing labs, both sides say.
Exactly what Mexican authorities discovered is unclear, as press releases from the Army, the main agency for drug seizures, are vague. doing. However, officials and analysts have found the majority to be methamphetamine laboratories.
Defense Minister Luis Crescencio Sandoval said this month that officials 37 Fentanyl pill manufacturing site seizedSince Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018. Interpreted by analysts as a change in tone, the report said the final stage of production – the conversion of the chemical ANPP to fentanyl – was actually happening at the facility. I admit that I am. However, the report suggested that the drug’s chemical ingredients came from a foreign country and that Mexico was not the main culprit in the fentanyl crisis that ravaged the United States.
Republican politicians take such conclusions as a sign that Mexico is unwilling to fight drug traffickers. Deaf,” Sen. Lindsay O. Graham (R-P) declared last month, introducing a law classifying Mexican criminal groups as terrorists.
“We are going to… Unleash America’s Fury and Power We are against these cartels,” Graham said. He said, “I promised the military the authority to track these organizations wherever they were. Not to invade Mexico. Not to shoot down Mexican planes. But the Americans to destroy the drug laboratories that are poisoning the
Rarely discussed in this controversy is the complexity of tackling fentanyl production.
Fentanyl labs are notoriously difficult to find. Unlike sprawling cocaine facilities found in the jungles of Colombia, fentanyl laboratories are often small and simple. No heat signature, chemical fumes, or strong odors like methamphetamine labs. Fentanyl can be made in your kitchen, basement, or garage with a small amount of chemicals.
“There’s even a tendency for synthetic drugs to be made on Airbnb,” says Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst at International Crisis Group.
Intelligence is essential in finding such sites. But Mexico has a critical shortage of well-trained investigators, a weak judicial system and widespread corruption. The military does not employ detectives, and traces of seized chemicals and laboratories are often stalled.
To make things even more complicated, Lopez Obrador restricts the DEA’s activities in Mexico, alleging the DEA has a history of violating national sovereignty. He was furious when he learned that the DEA agent had. Undercover investigation into Mexico’s former defense minister, General Salvador Cienfuegos, for drug trafficking allegations. Cienfuegos was arrested while on vacation in Los Angeles in 2020, but was later released amid US concerns about the solidity of the case and its potential impact on relationships.
US security officials have gleaned extensive information about the Mexican cartel’s fentanyl production from cooperating witnesses, informants and intelligence tactics, the former senior DEA official said. But in Mexico, “because there is no bilateral cooperation,” he said, “there is no one to pass the information to.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because his current employer continues to work with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
A crackdown on fentanyl in Mexico could be expensive, both politically and in terms of lives lost. Consider when Mexican forces broke into a rural village in Sinaloa in January and arrested alleged trafficker Ovidio Guzman. The cartel lieutenant counterattacked, It killed 10 soldiers, wounded 35, and wreaked havoc. An earlier attempt to arrest Guzmán saw hundreds of cartel militants seize control of the provincial capital Culiacan, ultimately winning his release.
“The Mexican government has not proven it has the capacity to deal with this problem. [fentanyl] Rand researcher David Lackey, principal investigator of last year’s US congressional report on fentanyl, said: He said that might explain Lopez Obrador’s reluctance to acknowledge domestic fentanyl production, known by his initials AMLO. “By refusing to acknowledge that there is a problem with Mexico, AMLO will not be held accountable.”
The Mexican government has denied failing to address the fentanyl crisis. Guzman, the son of imprisoned former Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, and another famous cartel, Jose, who is said to be close to his leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. He is Guadalupe Tapia. Although relations with the DEA have been strained, Mexico continues its anti-drug cooperation with her CIA and other US agencies, officials say.
Lopez Obrador ramps up efforts to seize precursor chemicals. He turned Mexico’s graft-ridden port over to the Navy and backed new regulations on progenitors and pill press that US officials have called the world’s strongest. Mexico has seen a surge in fentanyl seizures from warehouses, tablet manufacturing facilities, parcel delivery services and other locations.
Nevertheless, the flow of fentanyl to the United States continues unabated.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, Republicans introduced legislation in both houses of Congress designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.The idea of using US forces against Mexican traffickers is embraced by Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump said that would be his policy.”dismantle the carteljust as they overthrew ISIS and the ISIS Caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
Such stories might be dismissed as mere election brawls. But according to Rolling Stone, Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Asked Advisor for “Battle Plan” To stand up to traffickers in Mexico. According to former Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper, he twice proposed firing missiles at Mexico’s drug labs during his presidency. The U.S. military opposed this proposal.
Carlos Pérez Ricarto, professor of international relations at the Mexican Center for Economic Research and Education, said he suspected the US military would launch an offensive in Mexico. But he worried that such stories would become the norm in American politics. he said.
Analysts say the idea of using the military to bomb drug labs and target human traffickers reflects a misunderstanding of how Mexican cartels work. . Ernst pointed out that traffickers are not small isolated groups of outsiders, but people who are rooted in communities with ties to local and national politicians, security forces and business leaders.
To destroy such networks, he “We will have to bomb the whole area,” he said.
And it’s not clear whether killing or capturing a top trafficker would significantly disrupt the trade. It has been stated that it is very difficult to stop because it can be made into.If one crime boss is removed, another crime boss can intervene.
“We can send all the troops we need, but it doesn’t make a difference,” he said.
Mexicans vividly remember the massive U.S. invasions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Unilateral US military action in Mexico would jeopardize relations with a top trading partner that also helps control illegal immigration to the US.
Ebrard said such an intervention “would have very high costs and very bad consequences, because we would still have fentanyl for the next day.” [being sold] on the road. “
A U.S. indictment released this month provided a rare glimpse inside the Fentanyl operation allegedly run by Ovidio Guzman and his brother, known as “Chapitos.” For many Mexicans, the incident sent a clear message. The U.S. government has the ability to infiltrate the Sinaloa cartel and, arguably, has also detected ties to corrupt politicians. He accused it of “abusive interference” in Mexican affairs. “We will discuss on what terms we will cooperate,” he told reporters.
At least publicly, the US government is trying to smooth relations. Todd Robinson, the assistant secretary of state for international drug affairs, told The Washington Post that the US is not focusing on whether fentanyl is produced in Mexico, but that “it is.” Cut precursor chemicals, reduce the illegal flow of U.S. arms to Mexico, and reduce demand for fentanyl.
“There is no silver bullet to solve this problem, no single country can do it all on its own,” he said. “We need a global effort.”
