Mexico Smacks Fentanyl
The crackdown follows the Trump threat. Does it show a new Sheinbaum policy?
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On Tuesday, Mexican marines, soldiers and federal investigators swept on two houses in the sleepy seaside town of Ahome in northern Sinaloa. In the first building, according to Mexico’s security ministry, they found what could be a pill-mill or mixing-shop with various chemicals, industrial mixers, and a whopping 300 kilos of fentanyl. In the second, they nabbed a stunning 800 kilos of fentanyl, some of which was in pills packed into pick-up trucks, as the photo above shows, to be transported north to American users.
The raids constituted the biggest seizure of the toxic chemical in Mexico’s history, the ministry says, and calculates it was worth $400 million on the street. It came exactly a week after U.S. president-elect Donald Trump made a statement threatening to slap 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada if they don’t stop fentanyl and undocumented migrants heading to the United States.
It’s hard to believe the timing of the raids was a coincidence. Mexican agents will often make big busts handily before bilateral meetings with Washington. Following the tariff threat, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum had a phone call with Trump, and while accounts of the call differ, both parties seemed to walk away happy. It’s likely neither Trump nor Sheinbaum want a trade war and the threats, and response, illustrate the populist era of “diplomacy.”
The raids also coincided with Mexico’s Congress voting to change the Constitution to bring harsher penalties to anyone in the chain of fentanyl production and trafficking. Could this signal a real shift in Mexico’s policy to hit the drug harder, or is it just Kabuki Theater? Will Mexico be able to reduce fentanyl trafficking if it focuses on that specific drug, while it’s unable to stop cartels completely? And how would a reduction in fentanyl in Mexico affect the U.S. overdose crisis? I’ll offer answers to these questions below. But first there are more pertinent details, and queries, about the seizure itself.
Boom - Here’s A Ton of Fentanyl
Sinaloa has been ravaged by a civil war between the two main factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Mayos and Chapitos, following the July rendition of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Yet the raids didn’t happen in the turfs of either of these groups but in the north of the state in the domain alleged to be controlled by the kingpin…
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