Mexican soldiers and marines seized more than a ton of fentanyl pills in two raids in the north, with authorities calling the capture the largest quantity of the synthetic opioid in the country’s history.
The raids came after a sharp drop in fentanyl seizures in Mexico earlier this year and days after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump. threatened to impose 25% customs duties on the products of Canada And Mexico unless these countries clamp down on the flow of migrants and drugs across the border.
Experts say the timing may not be a coincidence.
“It is clear that the Mexican government managed the timing of the fentanyl seizures,” said security analyst David Saucedo. “But under pressure from Donald Trump, it appears that President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration is willing to step up drug trafficking capture and drug seizures, as Washington is demanding.”
Saucedo said it was clear that the Mexican government “does not consider fentanyl as one of its own problems, and fighting it is not its priority,” adding that there would only be major crises “under pressure from Washington”.
Mexico’s top security official said soldiers and marines spotted two men carrying firearms late Tuesday in the northern state of Sinaloa, home to the drug cartel of the same name. .
They chased the men, who rushed toward two houses. In one house, troopers found about 660 pounds of fentanyl and in the other a truck filled with about 1,750 pounds of the drug, mostly in the form of pills.
“In Sinaloa, we made the largest fentanyl seizure in history,” Public Safety Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch wrote on his social media accounts. Several weapons were also seized and two men were arrested.
Omar H. Garcia Harfuch via Reuters
Chairman Sheinbaum said Wednesday that “this is an investigation that has been going on for some time and came to fruition yesterday.”
But that assertion contrasts with the seemingly random nature of the arrest, which began when a military patrol “noticed the presence of two men carrying what appeared to be firearms.”
In the past, Mexican security forces have sometimes used stories of armed men rushing into homes as a pretext to enter homes without a search warrant. In at least one case, the government version was refuted by security camera footage.
This latest harvest is striking because fentanyl seizures in Mexico declined significantly during the first half of the year. At times in the summer under former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, federal forces reported that seizures amounted to just 50 grams (2 ounces) per week.
Figures for the first half of 2024 show that Mexican federal forces seized just 286 pounds (130 kilograms) of fentanyl nationwide between January and June, a 94% drop from 5,135 pounds (2,329 kilograms ) seized in 2023.
The synthetic opioid is blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths each year in the United States, and U.S. authorities have tried to step up efforts to seize it when it crosses the border, often in the form of manufactured counterfeit pills. in Mexico from chemical precursors, largely imported from China.
As “60 Minutes” reportedThe fentanyl crisis began 10 years ago when cartels began fighting for control of the supply chain from China, buying the drug’s chemical precursors to manufacture fentanyl in laboratories themselves illegal immigrants in Mexico. In 2019, China “scheduled” or blocked the export of fentanyl to the United States, furthering cartel dominance over the pipeline.
López Obrador has always denied that fentanyl is even produced in Mexico, although experts — and even members of his own administration — acknowledge that is the case.
And if Mexico doesn’t crack down on these fentanyl production facilities, it will still produce similar quantities in the future.
“It’s a very, very large seizure,” Saucedo said. “But if they don’t dismantle the labs, this type of production will continue.”
Also on Wednesday, the US State Department announced that it increase the reward for the head of another cartel, Nemesio Oseguera, from 10 to 15 million dollars.
Oseguera, known by his nickname “El Mencho” leads the Jalisco cartel, which, like Sinaloa, is heavily involved in the manufacturing and distribution of fentanyl and methamphetamines.
Last month, the son-in-law of “El Mencho” was arrested in California and accused of drug trafficking. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa “allegedly faked his own death and assumed a false identity to escape justice and live a life of luxury in California.”