Federal law enforcement seized seven times as much fentanyl from smugglers trying to move it across the U.S.-Mexico border compared to five years ago, according to newly published federal data.
The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency ended fiscal 2022 having prevented more than 14,700 pounds of the synthetic opioid from slipping into the United States. That’s a dramatic increase from fiscal 2017, when authorities seized 2,000 pounds.
TRUMP SUPPORTERS AT TEXAS RALLY STRONGLY OPPOSE ABBOTT, DESANTIS IN 2024
Fentanyl is a man-made drug that is so strong that three grains of the powder can induce a coma. U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 45 years old were more likely to die from consuming fentanyl than they were to die as the result of a car crash, the coronavirus, a heart attack, suicide, or a terrorist attack in 2021, the U.S. government declared. Fentanyl overdoses were a driving force behind the record-high 100,000 overdose deaths last year.
Seizures at the border have ballooned from two pounds in 2013, as the opioid epidemic evolved to prescription drugs from heroin.
The massive increase in fentanyl seizures over the past decade indicates that federal police are growing more successful at detecting the deadly drug from vehicles and on pedestrians coming through ports of entry. It also speaks to the growing rate at which Mexican cartels are pushing fentanyl across the border.
Of the 14,700 pounds caught between October 2021 and September 2022, 90% was found on passenger vehicles and human carriers at the southern border.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The remaining 10% of seized pounds were found in vehicles attempting to pass through the U.S. Border Patrol’s highway checkpoints. Dozens of these checkpoints are set up along the 2,000-mile border and may be as far as 100 miles north of the border.
The intention behind the checkpoints is to intercept illegal immigrants, drugs, firearms, and other goods that made it across without being nabbed the first time.
