WORLD NEWS

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives his regularly scheduled morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Updated 7:10 PM EDT, April 23, 2024

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The head of Mexico’s detective service acknowledged Tuesday that the country is “the champion” of fentanyl production, something that appears to run counter to past statements by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. López Obrador has hotly denied in the past that any fentanyl is produced in Mexico, saying Mexican cartels only press it into pills or add finishing touches. But Felipe de Jesus Gallo, the head of Mexico’s Criminal Investigation Agency, said that since the 1990s “Mexico has been the champion of methamphetamine production, and now fentanyl.” He spoke at a U.S.-Mexico conference on synthetic drugs in Mexico City. Experts agree that cartels in Mexico use precursor chemicals from China and India to make the synthetic opioid and smuggle it into the United States, where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually.

While fentanyl is not widely abused in Mexico, methamphetamine addiction is commonplace.

Gallo said that Mexican cartels have launched industrial-scale production of meth in many states throughout the country and now export the drug around the world.

“Believe me, methamphetamine production has become industrialized, it’s not just in the mountains anymore,” Gallo said. “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.” He was apparently referring to thousands of drug labs detected in previous years in the hills and scrublands around Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa. Those clandestine, rural production sites were often bare-bones, improvised labs covered with tree branches and tarpaulins.

Now, the meth trade has become so lucrative and so sophisticated that Mexican meth is exported as far away as Hong Kong or Australia, and the cartels have found ways to avoid detection of their drug money.

“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.

There is little question that drug production goes on at a huge scale in Mexico.

In February, Mexico’s Navy seized over 45 tons of methamphetamine at the biggest drug lab found during the current administration. The lab was in Quiriego, a township in a remote part of the northern border state of Sonora.

The 91,000 pounds (41,310 kilograms) of meth found there was more than half of the 162,000 pounds of the drug Mexico has seized so far this year.

Fentanyl production is also huge, though because it is a more potent drug, the volume is smaller.

A year ago, soldiers seized more than a half-million fentanyl pills in Culiacan in what the army at the time described as the largest synthetic drug lab found to date.

Soldiers found almost 630,000 pills that appeared to contain fentanyl, the army said. They also reported seizing 282 pounds (128 kilograms) of powdered fentanyl and about 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of suspected methamphetamine.

López Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1 2018, also claims that Mexicans are culturally immune to drug addiction.

FILE - Then Attorney General William Barr appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 1, 2019. A congressional committee is accusing China of fueling the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. A report released Tuesday by a House select committee says China is directly subsidizing the manufacturing of materials used by drug traffickers to make fentanyl outside the country. Barr says the committee’s report “uncovered persuasive evidence” that China’s government is “knee deep” in sponsoring and facilitating the export of fentanyl precursors. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

BY KEVIN FREKINGUpdated 4:12 PM EDT, April 16, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — China is fueling the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. by directly subsidizing the manufacturing of materials that are used by traffickers to make the drug outside the country, according to a report released Tuesday by a special House committee focused on countering the Chinese government. Committee investigators said they accessed a government website that revealed tax rebates for the production of specific fentanyl precursors as well as other synthetic drugs as long as those companies sell them outside of China. “Through its actions, as our report has revealed, the Chinese Communist Party is telling us that it wants more fentanyl entering our country,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the special House committee. “It wants the chaos and devastation that has resulted from the epidemic.”

In November, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a resumption of bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics with a focus on reducing the flow of precursor chemicals and synthetic drug trafficking. But the congressional report raises questions about whether China is following through.

The report’s findings were released Tuesday as part of a hearing examining China’s role in the fentanyl epidemic in the U.S. Most overdose deaths in the U.S. continue to be linked to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Inexpensive fentanyl is increasingly cut into other drugs, often without the buyers’ knowledge.

The Chinese government not only subsidizes the manufacturing of precursor chemicals, but the report says it has also thwarted investigations into illicit manufacturers by warning the targets of an investigation when U.S. law enforcement has sent a formal request for assistance. Investigators said multiple current and former federal agents have described the notification of targets, leading those targets to revamp operations and make it harder to detect their activities. Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr told lawmakers in Tuesday’s hearing that it’s hard to believe that a country with the most pervasive surveillance system in the world is not fully aware of the massive drug trafficking taking place. He said the committee’s report “uncovered persuasive evidence” that China’s government is not just a bystander, but is “knee deep” in sponsoring and facilitating the export of fentanyl precursors.

Barr recommended the U.S. use its trade and economic power to seek greater enforcement from Chinese authorities. He also said victims should bring civil actions against companies and individuals involved in distributing the precursors and synthetic drugs.

“I don’t think we can count on their goodwill, as we have in the past,” Barr said.

A Chinese official in a statement didn’t directly address the allegation of China subsidizing the production of fentanyl precursors, but the official did list several steps the nation has taken to curb fentanyl production. Following the Biden-Xi meeting in November, China issued a notice to remind relevant enterprises and individuals to be cautious in the sale of substances used for producing narcotic drugs. And on Jan. 30, a China-U.S. counter-narcotics working group officially launched, said Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington.

China has also pushed forward with a campaign that has involved “severely cracking down on illegal activities involving smuggling, manufacturing, trafficking and abuse of fentanyl substances and their precursor chemicals,” Pengyu said. And drug control authorities from the two countries are in regular communication with the Chinese updating U.S. officials on progress related to law enforcement actions and responding to requests for verification. “All these fully show that China’s drug control authorities have taken active actions to implement the consensus reached by the two Presidents, fully demonstrating China’s sincerity,” Pengyu said in a written statement. “It is very clear that there is no fentanyl problem in China, and the fentanyl crisis in the United States is not caused by the Chinese side, and blindly blaming China cannot solve the US’ own problem.”

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the committee, said Chinese companies are also currently selling synthetic opioids on their websites, and pointed to a screenshot of one such solicitation that committee staff found just Monday night in advance of the hearing. He said such posts have to be taken down immediately. “There are hundreds of these website posts — hundreds” Krishnamoorthi said. “This is completely unacceptable.” The chemical companies providing fentanyl precursors often have legitimate businesses with customers around the world. The report said fentanyl precursors and other synthetic narcotics are a “side hustle” designed to maximize profits.

Businesses that deal in fentanyl precursors and narcotics on the side are particularly vulnerable to U.S sanctions. The same goes for companies such as banks, online platforms and shipping companies that enable illicit fentanyl trade. The report calls on Congress to clarify the power of the president to sanction those involved in drug trafficking, for the U.S. to impose financial sanctions on violators and for regular reports to Congress on how often sanctions have been undertaken. It also calls for forming a task force that would place intelligence, economic and enforcement resources under one roof. The head of the group would report directly to the attorney general of the U.S. and serve as a special assistant to the president on the National Security Council with authority over the opioids portfolio

 WORLD NEWS

Updated 5:59 PM EDT, December 8, 2023

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities said Friday they have raided and closed 31 pharmacies in Baja California’s coastal city of Ensenada, after they were detected selling fake or fentanyl-laced pills.

Marines and health inspection authorities seized 4,681 boxes of medications that may have been offered for sale without proper safeguards, may have been faked and may contain fentanyl. “This measure was taken due to the irregular sales of medications contaminated with fentanyl, which represents a serious public health risk,” the Navy said in a press statement. Mexico’s health authorities are conducting tests on the seized merchandise. Ensenada is located about 60 miles (100 kms) south of the border city of Tijuana. The announcement represents one of the first times Mexican authorities have acknowledged what U.S. researchers pointed out almost a year ago: that Mexican pharmacies were offering controlled medications like Oxycodone, Xanax or Adderall, but the pills were often fentanyl-laced fakes.

Authorities inspected a total of 53 pharmacies, and found the suspected fakes in 31 of them. They slapped temporary suspension signs on the doors of those businesses.

Sales of the pills are apparently aimed at tourists. In August, Mexico shuttered 23 pharmacies at Caribbean coast resorts after authorities inspected 55 drug stores in a four-day raid that targeted establishments in Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum.

The Navy said the pharmacies usually offered the pills only to tourists, advertised them and even offered home-delivery services for them. The Navy did not say whether the pills seized in August contained fentanyl, but said it found outdated medications and some for which there was no record of the supplier, as well as blank or unsigned prescription forms. In March, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning about sales of such pills, and the practice appears to be widespread.

In February, the University of California, Los Angeles, announced that researchers there had found that 68% of the 40 Mexican pharmacies visited in four northern Mexico cities sold Oxycodone, Xanax or Adderall, and that 27% of those pharmacies were selling fake pills.

UCLA said the study, published in January, found that “brick and mortar pharmacies in Northern Mexican tourist towns are selling counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine. These pills are sold mainly to U.S. tourists, and are often passed off as controlled substances such as Oxycodone, Percocet, and Adderall.” “These counterfeit pills represent a serious overdose risk to buyers who think they are getting a known quantity of a weaker drug,” Chelsea Shover, assistant professor-in-residence of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said in February.

The U.S. State Department travel warning in March said the counterfeit pills being sold at pharmacies in Mexico “may contain deadly doses of fentanyl.”

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid far more powerful than morphine, and it has been blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States. Mexican cartels produce it from precursor chemicals smuggled in from China, and then often press it into pills designed to look like other medications.