Customs and Border Protection seized more fentanyl in the first half of 2021 than it had in any of the three years prior, the agency’s data showed.
From October 2020 to April 2021, CBP uncovered 6,494 lbs of fentanyl, one of the world’s deadliest drugs, as it defended the border, according to CBP data. The fentanyl that was seized represents a nearly 2,000-lb increase from the previous year.
BORDER FENTANYL SEIZURES SOARING AS CARTELS PUSH DANGEROUS DRUGS
In 2020, CBP seized 4,776 lbs of the drug, which was also a dramatic increase from the year before that, when authorities seized only 2,801 lbs of it.
The amount of the drug seized in 2021 represents a nearly 300% increase from 2018, when 2,283 lbs of the drug was seized.
The drug is a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin. More than 87,000 people in the United States died in 2020 from a drug overdose, the most in a year. Deaths involving these man-made opioids rose 60% in fiscal year 2021.
“Increasing fentanyl seizures are a reflection of effective law enforcement action as transnational criminal organizations traffic ever greater amounts of fentanyl into the United States,” a Drug Enforcement Administration official previously told the Washington Examiner. “Specifically, Mexican drug cartels have capitalized on the opioid epidemic and prescription drug misuse by flooding the United States with mass quantities of counterfeit prescription pills.”
Fentanyl is often created in pill form, and it can be so potent that one kilogram of fentanyl can contain 500,000 potentially fatal doses.
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“Fentanyl pills [are] more prevalent now. They tend to get it through whichever way possible they can,” Las Cruces-Doña Ana County Metro Narcotics Task Force Commander Sgt. Eric Avilucea previously told the Washington Examiner. “They’re, you know, smuggling it through the port of entries.”
Since 2018, as CBP caught an increase in fentanyl smuggling, the amount of marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamines seizures decreased.
