Thread: Mexican cartels are expanding their control over the US heroin market

Mexican cartels are expanding their control over the US heroin market

• Christopher Woody

• Dec. 7, 2016, 11:57 AM

A soldier cuts open an opium-poppy capsule during an eradication operation supervised by the Mexican army outside Morelia, Mexico, March 4, 2010.AP

Opium and heroin production in Mexico has expanded significantly over the past several years, and according to data gathered by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, that increased supply has flooded the US market.

Heroin from each of the world's source areas — Mexico, South America, Southwest Asia, and Southeast Asia — can be found in the US.

But, the DEA writes in its 2016 National Drug Threat Assessment, "analysis of DEA heroin indicator programs data, production and cultivation estimates, and seizure data indicates Mexico is the predominant source of heroin in the United States."

South America, where heroin production is concentrated in Colombia, is the second-most-common source of heroin found in the US. Heroin produced in Southwest Asia can be found in some parts of the US, but it mainly supplies Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Southeast Asian heroin, produced mainly in the Golden Triangle area that includes parts of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand, has not typically been found in the US, and while production in Myanmar has picked up, it remains below 2000 levels.

"Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Colombia dominate the U.S. heroin market because of their proximity, established transportation and distribution infrastructure, and ability to satisfy heroin demand in the United States," the DEA reports.


For every region of the US, heroin was more available in 2016 than it was 2009.DEA NDTA 2016

The DEA's 2015 report found that Mexican organizations were supplying about 50% of heroin seized in the US in 2012. The 2016 version of the report finds that Mexican organizations had expanded their market share to nearly 80% in 2014, whittling away the shares of South American and Southwest Asian producers.

Opium and other synthetic drugs like methamphetamine are largely produced in western Mexico, in remote areas removed from state control. Guerrero state, on Mexico's southwest coast, is the country's major opium producer and its most violent state.

In Sinaloa state, farther up the west coast, opium is a major crop in the region's Golden Triangle area, which spans Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua states.

More recently, the Sinaloa cartel, based in the state, has significantly expanded its synthetic-drug production. In 2014, 47 synthetic-drug labs were discovered in Sinaloa, followed by 80 in 2015. Through mid-October 2015, authorities had found 55 such labs.

Heroin produced in Latin America also outstripped Southwest Asian heroin in purity at both the wholesale and retail levels, likely because the long distance Southwest Asian heroin travels means more people have the opportunity to distribute and dilute it.

The distance Southwest Asian heroin has to travel also means it hasn't arrived in the US in quantities sufficient to challenge Latin American distribution, the DEA notes.


Mexican heroin producers have grown to supply the majority of heroin seized in the US.DEA NDTA 2016

The DEA's Heroin Signature Program has also seen a rising proportion of Mexican heroin since 2003, accounting for 79% of the total weight analyzed by the HSP in 2014. The heroin market's supply routes have also undergone a shift with the rise of the Mexican version of the drug.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, most of the heroin seized came from commercial air routes, which were typically used by traffickers coming from South America.

In fiscal year 2008, 47% of Customs and Border Protection's seized heroin had moved by air, and 49% had moved by land. By fiscal year 2015, that balance had shifted dramatically: 19% of CBP-seized heroin had moved by air, while 81% had been transported on land.

The Southwest Border region has seen the heaviest heroin-smuggling activity, recording a 352% increase between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2015, from 559 kilograms to 2,524 kilograms. Heroin is usually carried in private vehicles, typically coming through California.


The San Diego border corridor saw the heaviest heroin traffic in 2015.DEA NDTA 2016

"In 2015, nearly half of all United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) heroin seizures at the Southwest Border (2,120 kilograms) were seized in the San Diego Corridor (1,048 kilograms)," the DEA reports. "Seizures in the San Diego Corridor more than quadrupled since 2010 (229 kilograms)."

Despite the rise of Mexican-produced heroin, the US market for the drug retains a geographical divide. East of the Mississippi River, where there is a large user base in the Northeast and Midwest, heroin produced in South America and heroin of indeterminate origins but produced with South American methods is most common.

DEA analysis found that 96.9% of samples that were of Mexican origin had been recovered in areas west of the Mississippi River.

Orange County Deputy Probation Officer Erin Merritt holds a spoon with black-tar heroin, which she found in a probationer's apartment in Santa Ana, California, July 22, 2011.REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

This divide has also traditionally been reflected in the composition of the heroin itself.

Eastern US markets have typically been supplied with white-powder heroin, which is made by South American traffickers. In the western US, brown-powder or black-tar heroin produced in Mexico has been most common.

But as Mexican producers have tried to expand their control of the US market, brown-tar/black-tar heroin has begun appearing in eastern markets.

Producers in Mexico have also started churning out white-powder heroin, using either Mexican or Colombian poppies and manufactured with either Colombian methods or a combination of Colombian and Mexican methods.

This white-powder heroin has begun appearing in the western US, likely in part because of the area's growing status as a transit area for Mexican-produced heroin and because of Mexican producers' efforts to grow their market share in the region, where users might be more amenable to white-powder heroin.

The DEA reports that Mexican traffickers may be pursuing people the western US who abuse controlled prescription drugs by making and distributing "counterfeit prescription opioid pills which contain heroin instead of opioid painkillers," as white-powder heroin offers "a more natural transition" than black-tar heroin.

The most common iteration of this is counterfeit OxyContin pills. In addition to hooking new heroin customers, counterfeit prescription pills are a lucrative enterprise, the DEA notes, as the number of abusers of such medications is about 10 times larger than the number of heroin abusers, and such pills can be filled with cheap drugs but command premiums.

Fake Percocet pills that are actually fentanyl, which were seized and submitted to Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime labs.Tommy Farmer/Tennessee Bureau of Investigation via AP

How much and what kind of heroin these pills contain is often unknown, however, which can make them very dangerous, especially if that heroin contains fentanyl or other potent additives.

According to the DEA, "Mexican organizations are now the most prominent wholesale-level heroin traffickers in the DEA Chicago, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC [field division areas of responsibility], and have greatly expanded their presence in the New York City area."

Philadelphia in particular has seen a considerable increase in heroin use and deaths related to the drug. Through the beginning of December this year, the city was on pace for 900 drug-related overdose deaths, 30% more than last year and more than triple the city's homicide rate.

Mexico's Sinaloa cartel is suspected of pushing high-quality heroin into the Philadelphia market in order to expand its presence there.

Prescription-drug abusers have made up a large percentage of new heroin users in recent years.

The 2014 National Survey of Drug Use and Health found there was a 139% increase in heroin use by prescription opioid abusers between 2002-2004 and 2011-2013.

The 2014 NSDUH also found that the number of heroin users reporting current use — that is, use in the past month — increased 184% between 2007 and 2014, including a 51% increase in the last year.
The number of new heroin users also doubled between 2007 and 2014, from 106,000 to 212,000.


The number of people who've used heroin in the previous month in the US has risen considerable since 2007.DEA NDTA 2016

Nine of the DEA's field divisions ranked heroin as the biggest drug threat in 2015, and nine other field divisions considered it the second-biggest threat. The 2016 National Drug Threat Survey recorded 45% of respondents saying heroin was the greatest drug threat, more than any other drug and a number that has grown from 8% in 2007.

"Heroin use and availability are likely to continue to increase in the near term," the report states.

Drug-poisoning deaths involving heroin have risen from about 2,000 in 1999 to more than 10,000 in 2014, seeing a 248% increase between 2010 and 2014.

"Heroin overdose deaths will continue at high levels in the near term. The factors contributing to these deaths (ready availability of high-purity, low-cost heroin and a large influx of new users) continue to occur," the report concludes, though it notes that the growing prevalence of naloxone, an overdose antidote, may help mitigate those deaths.

http://www.businessinsider.com/mexic...market-2016-12

It's just a terrible terrible thing these evil cartels are doing. They know what they're doing is killing people in our country. They know it and they're selling this stuff anyway. Disgusting and horrible. Please spread the word so the people buying these drugs know the real risks and consequences of using these horrible drugs.

They are satanic..
And this is what sanctuary cities protect - DRUG CARTELS!

According to the DEA, "Mexican organizations are now the most prominent wholesale-level heroin traffickers in the DEA Chicago, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC [field division areas of responsibility], and have greatly expanded their presence in the New York City area."

Philadelphia in particular has seen a considerable increase in heroin use and deaths related to the drug. Through the beginning of December this year, the city was on pace for 900 drug-related overdose deaths, 30% more than last year and more than triple the city's homicide rate.

Mexico's Sinaloa cartel is suspected of pushing high-quality heroin into the Philadelphia market in order to expand its presence there.

Heroin, if you live thru the addiction and are able to recover, powerful receptors to reuse will be active in your brain for 8 years - it takes up your life. Tobacco receptors 3years.

Then, there is China.

‘Truly terrifying’: Chinese suppliers flood US and Canada with deadly fentanyl


By DAVID ARMSTRONG @DavidArmstrongX
APRIL 5, 2016


EROS DERVISHI FOR STAT

The dozen packages were shipped from China to mail centers and residences in Southern California. One box was labeled as a “Hole Puncher.”

In fact, it was a quarter-ton pill press, which federal investigators allege was destined for a suburban Los Angeles drug lab. The other packages, shipped throughout January and February, contained materials for manufacturing fentanyl, an opioid so potent that in some forms it can be deadly if touched.

When it comes to the illegal sale of fentanyl, most of the attention has focused on Mexican cartels that are adding the drug to heroin smuggled into the United States. But Chinese suppliers are providing both raw fentanyl and the machinery necessary for the assembly-line production of the drug powering a terrifying and rapid rise of fatal overdoses across the United States and Canada, according to drug investigators and court documents.

“We have seen an influx of fentanyl directly from China,” said Carole Rendon, the acting US attorney for the northern district of Ohio in Cleveland. “It’s being shipped by carrier. It’s hugely concerning because fentanyl is so incredibly deadly.”

The China connection is allowing local drug dealers in North America to mass produce fentanyl in pill form, in some cases producing tablets that look identical to an oft-abused version of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. It also has been added to Xanax pills. And last week, fentanyl pills made to resemble the painkiller hydrocodone were blamed for a wave of overdoses in the Sacramento area, including nine deaths.

The fentanyl pills are often disguised as other painkillers because those drugs fetch a higher price on the street, even though they are less potent, according to police.
The Southern California lab was just one of four dismantled by law enforcement in the United States and Canada in March.


Packaged fentanyl seized in Calgary, Alberta.CALGARY POLICE SERVICEIn British Columbia, police took down a lab at a custom car business that was allegedly shipping 100,000 fentanyl pills a month to nearby Calgary, Alberta where 90 people overdosed on the drug last year. The investigation began when border authorities intercepted a package in December containing pharmaceutical equipment. Police would not describe the equipment but told STAT it came from China.

https://www.statnews.com/2016/04/05/...aced-to-china/

This problem needs to be addressed with the Chinese government. NOW.

Deadly Fentanyl Trade Linked To Chinese Companies
April 21, 20164:29 PM ET
Heard on
All Things Considered

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with David Armstrong, senior enterprise reporter for the online health news site STAT, about the deadly opioid Fentanyl, and how it's being shipped into the U.S. and Canada from China in powder form, and pressed into pills that are sold on the street.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Not all the Fentanyl for sale in the U.S. comes over the border from Mexico. Some of it is shipped directly from China in powder form and then pressed into pills here. David Armstrong has written about that for the online news site STAT, and he joins us now. Welcome to the program.

DAVID ARMSTRONG: Thanks for having me.

SIEGEL: And do I have this right that not only is raw Fentanyl being shipped from China but also the machines used to press the powder into pill form?

ARMSTRONG: That's correct, Robert. Both the chemical needed to produce the Fentanyl is being shipped from China as well as these multi-hundred-pound pill presses that can produce upwards of thousands of pills an hour. So you can get both the machinery you need and the drug itself.

SIEGEL: And what's law enforcement doing about this traffic?

ARMSTRONG: Well, they're obviously trying to intercept these things as they come into the country. It's a very difficult thing to do. They're having a little more luck with the pill presses because they are large products. They're shipped illegally. We wrote about a case in Los Angeles where a 500-pound press was shipped labeled as a hole puncher.

But customs was able to intercept that. But it's very difficult because the illicit nature of it. And with so much traffic and so much commerce coming from China, it's really a needle in a haystack exercise in a lot of cases.

SIEGEL: But if it's a pill press machine, it's a pretty big needle just the same.

ARMSTRONG: Yeah, but it's in a box. The one that we wrote about came right through LAX with a lot of other packages of similar size on an aircraft. So, you know, when you're talking about the volume of commerce involved here, and if it's not being legally described because it is required to get a DEA permit to ship these things, then it can be a difficult thing to discern.

SIEGEL: Where'd you find this information about the Fentanyl trade coming in from China?

ARMSTRONG: Well, some of it is contained in court filings. For instance, the Southern California lab because they were able to intercept that one pill press, they were able to surveil that group for a period of time. And it turned out, that they had five or six pill presses. They had a very significant operation that included a warehouse and multiple lab locations. So that's one way we found out. The other is just talking to law enforcement. And this is happening everywhere. You know, we talked to the U.S. attorney in Cleveland who said that Fentanyl is coming directly from China to that area and sometimes being sold as Oxycodone. People don't even know they're taking Fentanyl.

SIEGEL: Do you think this is an offshoot of a legitimate pharmaceutical industry in China or Chinese crime?

ARMSTRONG: It's really difficult to say. These are legitimate companies. They're legally producing, as far as we can see, the products that they produce. The problem is they are shipping the product here where it's being used illicitly. And in many cases, the pharmaceutical companies that are doing this say they are only providing it for research means. But it doesn't appear as if there's any serious effort to uncover the source of the buyer and if they are truly researchers or using it for such a purpose.

SIEGEL: David Armstrong, a senior enterprise reporter for STAT, a new online news site dedicated to health and science. Thank you.
ARMSTRONG: Thanks for having me.

This is the sort of thing the FBI needs to be investigating, not fake news or "TIES TO RUSSIA". This problem has been going on for at lest 2 years. Trump found out about it in New Hampshire campaigning for the New Hampshire primary 2 years ago. Where is the FBI on this? Where is the Congress on this? Where was Obama on this? Where is the FDA on this? Where is the DEA on this? Where are state and local law enforcement on this? WHERE IS EVERYBODY ON THIS??!!

Why are drugs being "legally" imported into the US from China? I thought we forbid that.

Originally Posted by Judy

It's just a terrible terrible thing these evil cartels are doing. They know what they're doing is killing people in our country. They know it and they're selling this stuff anyway. Disgusting and horrible. Please spread the word so the people buying these drugs know the real risks and consequences of using these horrible drugs.

It is an interesting way to wage war and reduce a population if someone believed in conspiracy theories.

It is a war w/o a sword or rifle raised. No conspiracy theory - they talk of being rid of Americans in a very short time. They are here to conquer thru low wages (for now) & overpopulating on our dime, They laugh at us, they know their plan is working.

Could not have been done w/o the assistance from our gov't either. All we had to do was enforce our immigration laws. Bloomberg and others had other plans -"growth thru immigration" (legal or illegal) and to hell with American citizens after they pay for it all $$$$.

Our "neighbor" mexico allows poppy fields?????