Federal security forces have seized almost 144 tonnes of drugs at Mexico’s 22 biggest ports since President López Obrador took office in December 2018.
According to information obtained by the newspaper Milenio via requests made to the National Institute for Transparency and Access to Information (INAI), the army, navy and National Guard confiscated 143.97 tonnes of drugs including marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin during the first 15 months of the current federal administration.
The quantity of narcotics seized at ports accounted for 97% of all drugs confiscated since López Obrador became president.
Seizures at the port in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, accounted for 71% of all drugs confiscated and just under 80% of the total for marijuana.
The ports in Guaymas, Sonora; Huatulco, Oaxaca; Puerto Peñasco, Sonora; Puerto Chiapas, Chiapas; and Ensenada, Baja California saw the next biggest seizures but the amounts confiscated there were dwarfed by the 102.24 tonnes confiscated in Mazatlán.
Just over 124 tonnes of marijuana were seized at ports in the last 15 months, a figure that accounts for 86.2% of the total amount of drugs confiscated. The largest single seizure occurred at Mazatlán last month when the navy confiscated 99 tonnes of pot.
The second most commonly seized drug was crystal methamphetamine, with total confiscations of 11.11 tonnes. Almost 7.5 tonnes of the drug, or 67% of the total, were seized in Guaymas.
Cocaine followed with port seizures totaling 7.81 tonnes since December 2018. Just over 45% of that amount – 3.55 tonnes – was seized in Puerto Chiapas, a port town approximately 25 kilometers southwest of Tapachula.
The three federal security forces seized just under 837 kilograms of methamphetamine (other than crystal meth) since López Obrador took office, 22.3 kilograms of heroin and 43.3 kilograms of other drugs. Ensenada saw the largest confiscations in all three categories.
Data supplied by INAI also showed there were drug seizures in the past 15 months at the Tamaulipas ports of Altamira and Tampico, but these were negligible, with authorities confiscating just 0.01 tonnes in the former location and 0.03 tonnes in the latter.
Milenio reported that almost 12.5 tonnes of drugs were seized in April 2019, making that month the second most successful for the federal government in terms of confiscations after February 2020. The least successful month was December 2019, with narcotics confiscations of just 18 kilograms.
Milenio also reported that homicide numbers were high in many of the ports that are used by criminal organizations, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation, to transport drugs.
There have been 500 homicides with firearms in Mazatlán since President López Obrador took office, 261 in Guaymas and 93 in Huatulco, according to the National Public Security System.
Source: Milenio (sp)
