While the president of Mexico continues to assert that his nation does not generate fentanyl, the Mexican military has disclosed that it raided a lab in Sinaloa that was producing fentanyl and methamphetamine.
The seizure occurred this past week in Culiacan, Sinaloa, when federal agents stormed a residence in the Ampliacion El Barrio community. Authorities discovered almost 250 pounds of fentanyl pills, over five pounds of fentanyl powder, more than 75 pounds of fentanyl paste, along with seven pounds of heroin, and other chemicals needed to create synthetic drugs during that raid.
The lab’s discovery followed repeated public declarations by Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador that the nation of Mexico doesn’t produce fentanyl and that the present opioid crisis is a problem in the United States. According to Breitbart Texas, Lopez Obrador recently issued a letter to China urging them to do more to stem the supply of fentanyl into Mexico. China answered that there is no illegal drug trade between China and Mexico.
Despite Lopez Obrador’s claims, Mexico’s military revealed earlier this year the raid on a fentanyl manufacturing plant and one of the biggest methamphetamine laboratories in Sinaloa. During that February seizure, officials recovered in excess of 270 pounds of granulated fentanyl, about 630,000 fentanyl tablets, over 210 pounds of methamphetamine, and numerous chemicals required in its synthesis, according to military information at the time.
Mexico’s minister of foreign affairs and presidential candidate Marcelo Erbard has stated that Mexico is the nation that does the greatest work to block the global flow of fentanyl into the United States. Despite the fact that fentanyl is an issue in the United States, Mexico has achieved record seizures of the substances and their precursors, according to Ebrard.
El Ejército localizó un centro de procesamiento de #fentanilo en inmueble de la colonia Ampliación del Barrio, en Culiacán, Sinaloa.
La @SEDENAmx incautó 120 kilos de pastillas de fentanilo de colores y casi 40 kilos en polvo y pasta, una máquina mezcladora y una tableteadora. pic.twitter.com/wTWpK8554N
— Fuerza Informativa Azteca (@AztecaNoticias) April 8, 2023
According to the National Institute of Health, the United States has had over 70,000 reported deaths from opioid overdoses in 2021, with fentanyl accounting for the vast majority of them.
