Mexico sees seizures of meth, fentanyl skyrocket
MEXICO CITY – Mexican drug cartels are turning to bigger, more productive labs to churn out increasing quantities of synthetic drugs such as meth and fentanyl, according to seizure figures issued Monday by the country’s Defense Department.
The defense secretary, Gen. Luis Cresencio Sandoval, acknowledged there has been a huge shift by Mexican cartels away from naturally grown drugs such as opium and marijuana, where seizures and crop eradication has fallen.
But he said seizures of the synthetic opioid fentanyl soared 525% in the first three years of the current administration, which took office Dec. 1, 2018, compared to the previous three years. Law enforcement seized 1,232 pounds of fentanyl in 2016-2018 and 7,710 pounds in 2019-2021.
Part of that increase was from increased overall use of fentanyl, which Mexican cartels import from China and then press into pills or mix into other drugs.
“There was a change in consumption, there was a change in drug markets due to the ease of producing synthetic drugs,” Sandoval said. For example, cartels no longer have to pay farmers to grow opium poppies and painstakingly collect the opium paste that oozes from the bulbs.
The change was reflected in a drop of more than 50% in the amount of opium poppy fields destroyed in the last three years. And with legalization of pot in many U.S. states, eradication of marijuana fields in Mexico also dropped by about half.
Seizures of methamphetamine, meanwhile, more than doubled. Meth seizures rose from 120,100 pounds in 2016-2018 to almost 275,000 pounds in the last three years, an increase of 128%.
Mexican cartels are increasingly turning to huge, industrial-scale labs to churn out synthetic drugs.
Sandoval said the number of drug labs raided fell from 287 in 2016-2018 to 203 over the last three years. But those that were detected were bigger, he added.
“The laboratories that have been discovered or seized in this administration have had larger capacities, which has allowed us to seize a larger quantity of methamphetamine products,” Sandoval said.
Mexico’s synthetic drug boom was illustrated last week when a trucker from Mexico was arrested after trying to smuggle record-breaking amounts of meth and fentanyl into the U.S.
More than 17,500 pounds of meth and 389 pounds of fentanyl were discovered Thursday hidden inside a tractor-trailer at the Otay Mesa border crossing in San Diego, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The seizures were the largest of either drug in the U.S. for both 2020 and 2021, the statement said.
Sandoval touted the increased seizures in Mexico as a sign of the government’s success. But Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope noted that “an increase in seizures can be a very bad sign.”
“It could be because of a greater effort, or it could be because there is a greater volume” of illegal drugs being produced, he said.