Authorities in the United States and Mexico are working together to combat criminal groups capitalizing on growing demand for the deadly and highly lucrative synthetic opioid fentanyl, but the US mailing system is quickly emerging as the key ingredient in that fight.
Ports of entry along the southwest border of the United States and the US mailing system are two of the most significant fentanyl trafficking routes, according to Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Brian McKnight of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Chicago.
“With fentanyl, they’re [traffickers] getting it from China down into Mexico, and then converting and packaging it up into the United States,” SAC McKnight told InSight Crime. “They [Mexican drug trafficking groups] had the [methamphetamine] labs already set up, and now they’re in the fentanyl business.”