The National Guard (GN) has seized over 800,000 fentanyl pills in the northern state of Sinaloa in recent days. All were apparently destined for Tijuana, and likely then the United States.
The security force reported the confiscation of over 600,000 “apparent fentanyl” pills last Saturday, as well as the seizure of approximately 20,000 pills on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Guard discovered yet another load of more than 200,000 pills.
All three seizures occurred at courier/parcel delivery companies in Culiacan. The two largest seizures were both hidden inside bottles labeled as vegetable protein.
The first and largest of the three seizures occurred at a Culiacán courier company, according to a GN statement, which said that the Guard obtained prior permission to enter the premises to conduct “preventive searches” for narcotics with the assistance of a sniffer dog. The more than 600,000 blue pills confiscated weighed a total 64.2 kilograms.
The second confiscation on Tuesday occurred at a parcel delivery company located at the Culiacán International Airport. Again with the assistance of a sniffer dog, National Guard officers detected about 20,000 blue pills “with the characteristics of fentanyl,” as well as a package of “possible heroin” inside a box marked as containing a “family-sized plastic pool,” the GN said.
The third seizure, at yet another courier company in the Sinaloa capital, was of more than 200,000 “apparent fentanyl” pills, weighing a total 21 kilograms and also “hidden in bottles labeled as vegetable protein.”
“In less than a week, the National Guard located and seized three shipments with more than 820,000 tablets of apparent fentanyl,” the statement said. “With these actions, the National Guard reaffirms its commitment to citizens to eradicate in the country the shipment and distribution of all substances that [negatively] affect people’s health.”
According to federal authorities, crime groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel press illegal fentanyl pills in Mexico using precursor ingredients imported from Asia. The majority of the pills are shipped across the border to the United States, where the potent synthetic opioid was a leading cause of over 100,000 drug overdose deaths in 2022.
Mexican officials have met with their U.S. counterparts on several occasions to discuss the fentanyl problem, and in April the two countries “committed to continue joint work to dismantle the fentanyl supply chain and the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel on both sides of the border.”
Mexico News Daily
