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OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author’s opinion
The outgoing Drug Enforcement Agency chief in El Paso says the smuggling situation along his sector has gone from bad to worse and has actually never been as bad as it is now under the Biden administration.
In an interview with the El Paso Times, his last in his official capacity, DEA El Paso Division Chief Kyle W. Williamson said the “cartel-driven opioid crisis in the U.S. is the worst it’s ever been since he started with the agency in 1991,” Just The News reported, adding:
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His message comes as Mexican cartels that operate at will along stretches of the U.S. southern border are flooding the country with deadly fentanyl and methamphetamine and after the DEA issued an urgent public safety warning, its first in six years, about the alarming increase in the availability of fake prescription pills containing lethal doses of fentanyl and methamphetamine.
His warning comes as cartel gunfire in Mexico can be heard across the river in Texas border towns. The most powerful cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, effectively controls the southern border from California to east of the Big Bend region in Texas, although it has a presence in nearly all Mexican states.
“It’s the worst it’s ever been,” Williamson told the paper. “There’s no good news here. And the amount of methamphetamine and fentanyl coming in right now is unprecedented.”
The Daily Wire adds: “Under the leadership of Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman and Ismael El Mayo Zambada, it became the largest transnational cartel organization (TCO) controlling the U.S.-Mexico border for at least the last decade. Once El Chapo was arrested and imprisoned in the U.S., internal conflict began, and external conflict escalated with the Juarez Cartel, which appears to have formed an alliance with the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG).”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona unsealed indictments Friday against four high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel including Guzman’s brother, Aureliano Guzman-Loera. But it’s not clear what effect they’re going to have if the U.S. can’t get any cooperation from neighboring Mexico or if the indicted cartel members don’t set foot on U.S. soil.
“The violence, intimidation, theft, and financial crimes carried out by [Mexican] TCOs, criminal groups, and violent gangs pose a significant threat to our nation,” the DEA warned in its National Drug Threat Assessment released in March.
“The criminal activities of these organizations operating in the United States extend well beyond drug trafficking and have a profoundly negative impact on the safety and security of U.S. citizens. Their involvement in alien smuggling, firearms trafficking, and public corruption, coupled with the high levels of violence that result from these criminal endeavors, poses serious homeland security threats and public safety concerns,” the warning continued.
The Daily Wire adds:
During 2019 and the first half of 2020, two DEA initiatives resulted in the confiscation of more than 28,000 pounds of methamphetamine and millions of counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, and over 2,600 targets arrested, according to the report.
For decades, one primary focus of Mexican cartels was producing and trafficking marijuana and heroin and shipping South American cocaine to the U.S. But with the explosion of opioid addiction over the last decade, cartels found that fentanyl and meth were cheaper and easier to produce and the profits were astronomical by comparison.
The increased drug smuggling is leading to even more drug overdose deaths in the U.S., especially from Fentanyl, which is being “imported in its pure state from China into the Mexican ports of Lazaro Cardnenas, Manzanillo or Mazatlan, and all that is required is a pill maker,” the Daily Wire noted further.
The DEA notes that fentanyl, originally approved in 1968 by the FDA, is “approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin.”
For a time in 2019, the Trump administration considered classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.
Article Source : Conservativebrief.com
OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author’s opinion
Reminder : The purpose of the articles that you will find on this website is to EDUCATE our opinions and not to disinform or grow hate and anger!