The Drug Enforcement Agency revealed that Mexican cartels are operating in every U.S. state.
In its 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment, the agency highlights the “dangerous shift from plant-based drugs to synthetic drugs.” The report explained that this transition resulted in the “most dangerous and deadly drug crisis the United States has ever faced.”
The report noted that the two cartels at the “heart of this crisis” are the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, which are “global criminal enterprises that have developed global supply chain networks.”
Both cartels “rely on chemical companies and pill press companies in China to supply the precursor chemicals and pill presses needed to manufacture the drugs.”
“They operate clandestine labs in Mexico where they manufacture these drugs, and then utilize their vast distribution networks to transport the drugs into the United States. They rely on associates in the United States to distribute the drugs at a retail level on the streets and on social media,” the report said, adding that the cartels “utilize Chinese Money Laundering Organizations to move their profits from the United States back to Mexico.”
Fentanyl killed nearly 38,000 Americans during the first six months of 2023.
In November 2023, CBP seized about 300 pounds of fentanyl in Tucson, Arizona.
During that same time, over 14,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States from Tucson.
