DEA’s 2024 report notes cartels are shifting out of plant-based drugs to synthetic drugs produced with supplies from China.
Two of Mexico’s largest cartels have footholds in all 50 states, the Drug Enforcement Agency is warning.
According to a federal report released this week, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Nuevo Jalisco Generacion Cartel are behind a surge in narcotics, importing synthetic drugs made with supplies from China.
“The 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment highlights the dangerous shift from plant-based drugs to synthetic drugs,” wrote DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “This shift has resulted in the most dangerous and deadly drug crisis the United States has ever faced. These synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl and methamphetamine, are responsible for nearly all of the fatal drug poisonings in our nation.”
The two cartels “operate clandestine labs in Mexico where they manufacture these drugs, and then utilize their vast distribution networks to transport the drugs into the United States,” the report states. “They rely on associates in the United States to distribute the drugs at a retail level on the streets and on social media.”
“Finally, the Cartels utilize Chinese Money Laundering Organizations to move their profits from the United States back to Mexico. Drug trafficking organizations based in Mexico and South America are increasingly utilizing China based underground banking systems as their primary money laundering mechanism.”
The report states the cartels operate as illicit drug wholesalers for distributors in major cities across America, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami and more.
The DEA notes it’s focusing its resources on the two cartels, which are primarily responsible for the mass proliferation of fentanyl.
“As the single mission agency tasked with enforcing our nation’s drug laws, DEA’s top operational priority is to relentlessly pursue and defeat the two Mexican drug cartels—the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel—that are primarily responsible for driving the current fentanyl poisoning epidemic in the United States.”
Read the report below:
