Mexico Is the 'Champion' of Fentanyl Production, Says Country's Detective Agency Head

Despite President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's claims that fentanyl is not being made in Mexico, the head of Mexico's Criminal Investigation Agency is saying otherwise and calling the country the "champion" of fentanyl production.

Previously, Lopez Obrador denied that fentanyl was being produced in Mexico and claimed that cartels only press it into pills or add finishing touches. This is despite his own law enforcement agencies raiding and shutting down factories that directly produced fentanyl.

Criminal Investigation Agency head Felipe de Jesus Gallo further contradicted his president's claims by admitting that since the 1990s, "Mexico has been the champion of methamphetamine production, and now fentanyl," during a US-Mexico conference on synthetic drugs in Mexico City.

Mexican drug cartels, including the most notorious ones like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel, often use precursor chemicals that are bought and shipped from China and India to produce fentanyl. They then smuggle it into the United States, which is in the midst of a fentanyl epidemic, as the synthetic drug has already caused approximately 70,000 overdose deaths annually.

Gallo added that these Mexican cartels have "launched industrial-scale production of meth" all over the country. They also export these illegal narcotics all over the world. The Associated Press noted that while there is not much fentanyl abuse in Mexico, methamphetamine addiction is quite common.

"Believe me, methamphetamine production has become industrialized, it's not just in the mountains anymore," Mexico's top detective added. "We now expect to see (drug) laboratories not just in the mountains of Sinaloa and Sonora, but in Hidalgo as well, Puebla, and also in Jalisco."

Mexico's Most Infamous Drug Cartels Have Created a Complex Global Drug Trade

While there are many drug labs all over Mexico, mostly in rural areas of the North American country, the meth trade these drug cartels made has become a lucrative and so sophisticated but still illegal industry, with an illicit network that imports chemicals from Asia, produces drugs in Mexico, and exports them to the US and back to the Asia Pacific region, including Hong Kong and Australia.

"The business models have become very innovative, or as old and antiquated as barter; 'I'll trade you precursor chemicals for meth,' to avoid leaving a money trail," Gallo said in his speech. ABC News noted, "There is little question that drug production goes on at a huge scale in Mexico."

US Actively Pursuing Fentanyl Traffickers From Mexico

Both Mexico and the United States are actually working with each other to pursue the people trafficking fentanyl through the border. Just recently, Mexico extradited a known fentanyl traveler to California, with that suspect standing in trial in federal court in Sacramento just last Friday.

The DEA noted that Luis Felipe Lopez Zamora, 28, along with 13 co-defendants, have been charged with "a variety of fentanyl-pill, cocaine, and methamphetamine trafficking and money laundering crimes." Lopez himself was arrested in Mexico last January 2, with Mexico extraditing him to the US last month.

It has already become common practice for Mexican authorities to extradite some of the more notorious drug traffickers to the US. The most famous example is, of course, El Chapo.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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