By Steve Neavling
Two Mexican cartels “pose the greatest criminal threat the United States has ever faced” because of their production of fentanyl, a top DEA official told a U.S. House panel.
Illicit fentanyl, obtained from precursor chemicals in China, are controlled by the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, said Jon C. DeLelena, the DEA’s associate administrator for business operations, The Washington Times reports.
At secret labs, the cartels use the chemicals to make fentanyl, which is shipped in powder form and cut with drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine.
“These ruthless, violent criminal organizations have associates, facilitators and brokers in all 50 states as well as in more than 40 countries around the world,” DeLena told the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “I have seen firsthand what the Mexican cartels have done to our great country. The cartels are destroying families and communities with callous indifference and greed.”
Fentanyl is killing Americans at an alarming rate. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids rose from nearly 10,000 in 2015 to more than 70,000 in 2021, according to recent federal data.
In 2022, the DEA seized more than 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl, enough to kill every American.
CBP also announced a record amount of fentanyl was seized at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2022.
