Mexico has announced its largest-ever seizure of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, as cross-border pressure mounts for the country to crack down on drug trafficking into the United States.
In a statement on Wednesday, Omar Garcia Harfuch, Mexico’s secretary of security and citizen protection, said the haul came after authorities took “two separate actions” in the coastal state of Sinaloa.
“In Sinaloa, the largest historical seizure of fentanyl was achieved,” Garcia Harfuch explained, saying that “more than a tonne of fentanyl pills” were intercepted.
Two men were also arrested and firearms were confiscated. “These actions will continue until the violence in the state of Sinaloa decreases,” he said.
Separately, the Mexican government also announced it had detained more than 5,200 migrants and asylum seekers a day earlier, on Tuesday, as they headed towards the US border.
Both actions are likely to be seen as efforts to placate the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump in the US.
Trump has threatened to slap an onerous 25-percent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada unless both countries take actions to tamp down drug trafficking and immigration across their shared borders with the US.
Speaking to The Associated Press (AP) news agency, security analyst David Saucedo indicated that he believes Mexico’s efforts on Wednesday are the result of “pressure from Washington”.
“It is clear that the Mexican government has been managing the timing of fentanyl seizures,” Saucedo said.
“But under the pressure by Donald Trump, it appears President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration is willing to […] increase the capture of drug traffickers and drug seizures that Washington is demanding.”
For her part, Sheinbaum, who was inaugurated as Mexico’s president in October, framed the fentanyl seizure as an effort long in the making.
“This is an investigation that had been going on for some time, and yesterday, it bore fruit,” she said on Wednesday.
Sheinbaum and Trump spoke last week about efforts to stop migration northwards as well, though the two leaders emerged with different accounts of the conversation.
Trump wrote on social media that Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border”.
Sheinbaum, however, clarified she desired “not to close borders but to build bridges”. She did, however, affirm that her government would prevent so-called migrant caravans — large groups of migrants who band together for safety — from reaching the border.
Fentanyl, meanwhile, is the primary cause of overdose deaths in the US. The US Drug Enforcement Administration describes the synthetic opioid as “100 times more potent” than morphine.
In a 12-month period from 2020 to 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that deaths linked to synthetic opioids had risen more than 55 percent in the country.
Trump’s incoming vice president, Senator JD Vance, often spoke about his own family’s experiences with addiction on the campaign trail as the Republican ticket sought the White House.
But statistics from Mexico’s government had shown a slump in fentanyl seizures leading up to Wednesday’s announcement. During the first half of 2024, Mexico’s federal law enforcement seized 130 kilogrammes, or 286 pounds, down 94 percent from the amount seized a year prior.
Violence in Sinaloa is also a factor. Since the capture of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a Sinaloa Cartel kingpin, in the US, rival factions have been seeking to fill the power vacuum left in his absence.
Speaking to AP, Saucedo explained that authorities ultimately need to address the root causes of the fentanyl trade for the trafficking to stop.
“It’s a very very big seizure,” Saucedo said of Wednesday’s haul. “But if they don’t dismantle the labs, this kind of production will continue.”
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