The Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration have blamed Mexican cartels and Chinese chemical manufacturers for the deadly fentanyl crisis in the United States.
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said on Tuesday two major cartels in Mexico — the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel — are the driving force behind getting fentanyl across the U.S. border, calling the groups “the greatest threat” facing U.S. communities. She emphasized the cartels work closely with co-conspirators in China to obtain the necessary precursor for their drugs and to launder their illegal profits.
“These cartels are responsible for virtually all the fentanyl, and they currently dominate the worldwide fentanyl distribution and supply chain. They are sourcing these precursor chemicals from China, that are the building blocks of synthetic and man-made fentanyl,” Milgram said during a Tuesday press conference at DEA headquarters alongside DOJ’s top leaders. “They are in charge of the production of the fentanyl that is happening across Mexico. They are operating the transportation networks that are bringing the fentanyl into the United States. They run and oversee the sales of fentanyl on social media and in our cities, our communities, and our towns.”
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The DEA leader added that the cartels “are also responsible for the illicit laundering of money, the money that they are making off of these deadly proceeds, going between China and Mexico.” She said the DEA’s “top operational priority” is to “defeat” the cartels and that the agency’s “core mission” is to “target those two networks as they operate worldwide, from China to Mexico to the United States.”
Republicans have harshly criticized the Biden administration for not securing the U.S.’s southern border, but Attorney General Merrick Garland argued Tuesday that the U.S. government was working hard to do so, while he also called out China.
“Every day, thousands of employees and professionals of the Department of Homeland Security, together with professionals across the United States government, including the Justice Department, are working to secure the border,” Garland said Tuesday. “What we’re trying to do at the DEA, as the administrator described, is to take down the cartels that are the cause in the United States, to take down the distributors for the cartels who are working in the United States, and to stop the companies that are providing the precursor chemicals from China.”
The DOJ also put out a fact sheet on Tuesday as part of its “One Pill Can Kill Initiative” with the DEA, revealing federal law enforcement partners seized more than 10.2 million fentanyl pills and approximately 980 pounds of fentanyl powder from late May to early September.
“Of the 390 cases investigated during this period, 51 cases are linked to overdose poisonings, and 35 cases link directly to one or both of the primary Mexican cartels responsible for the majority of fentanyl in the United States,” the DOJ said.
The DOJ said fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat facing the U.S., with a record-setting 107,622 people dying from a drug overdose in 2021, with two-thirds of those poisonings attributable to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
The two Mexican cartels are reportedly fighting over control of Mexico’s coastal seaports where the Chinese-origin precursor chemicals for fentanyl arrive.
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The Chinese government suspended its anti-drug efforts with the U.S. in August as part of its list of punishments in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) decision to visit the democratic island nation of Taiwan, which Beijing regards as part of China. The Foreign Ministry announced in early August it was carrying out eight “countermeasures” to punish the U.S., including “suspending China-U.S. counternarcotics cooperation.”
Republicans have been arguing that the Biden administration is not doing nearly enough to push the Chinese government to crack down on the problem.
