The deadly drug responsible for an unprecedented wave of deaths in the United States, fentanylarrives from Asia and enters through the ports of Michoacán, Sinaloa and Colima to later be processed and marketed, Defense Secretary Luis Sandoval said Thursday.
“Fentanyl arrives through Asia and here what is done is to produce the fentanyl pills through tabletting machines”, he detailed.
During the report on “Traditional and synthetic drugs in Mexico,” the general assured that the increase in the trade of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl is due to the legalization of the production and consumption of marijuana in 44 entities of the United States and Canada.
The lower demand for traditional drugs caused criminal organizations to focus their productive turn on much more profitable opioids such as fentanyl, responsible for the deaths of more than hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.
In 2021 alone, more than 100,000 Americans died from overdoses of synthetic opioids derived from this drug.
Its consumption in the United States skyrocketed in the second decade of this century. From 2014 to 2016, the number of seizures went from 5,500 to 35,000, an increase of 636 percent, according to DEA figures.
It was in those years that criminal networks in Mexico discovered their economic potential and began to dominate their contraband, according to the 2021 Annual Global Threat Assessment, prepared by the United States Directorate of National Intelligence.
The health emergency derived from its trade and consumption has caused the Mexican authorities to channel efforts towards securing it.
So far this six-year term, they have ensured 2 thousand 879 kilograms, the equivalent of 2,892 million doses and 13,588,000 pills. The value of the insured amounts to one million 156 thousand 457 million pesos.
In the case of methamphetamine, they have ensured 118 kilograms with a value of 34 thousand 523 million pesos.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elfinanciero/G7QORRPJORF3XPJUYS2KHSUCN4.jpeg&description=Fentanyl+arrives+from+Asia+and+enters+through+ports+in+Michoac%C3%A1n%2C+Sinaloa+and+Colima%3A+Sedena){kind=link}