The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, have reported the creation of a high-level Trilateral Committee on fentanyl for coordinate their actions against the distribution and consumption of this drug in North America, which they consider to be a “main threat”.
The three countries will focus their efforts on the demand for drugs and public health, modes and methods of drug traffickingillicit finance and current and emerging synthetic drugs, according to a statement
In addition, they will work for hinder the “transfer, facilitation, and global supply of illicit fentanyl, precursor chemicals, and the equipment used in their illicit production (such as pill making machines)”, and have pledged to help other countries affected by this type of synthetic drugwhich also include methamphetamine, captagon and tramadol.
the three governments will meet again next June in a trilateral forum on public health.
Fentanyl is an extremely addictive drug from the opiate familywhich has caused a rising wave of overdose deaths on US soil in recent years.
Operations against fentanyl in the US
The US authorities have claimed that all the fentanyl in the country comes from Mexico and mostly through the Sinaloa Cartelto which the United States Department of Justice has given a coup this Friday by imputing four children of the “narco of narcos” Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera, as well as against 24 other members of the Sinaloa Cartel that he directed, within the framework of a judicial macro-operation, developed in a dozen countries, against the trafficking of fentanyl and that reached Chinese companies that supply chemical materials.
Mexico, the United States, and Canada concluded the First Meeting of the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee by recognizing synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl, as the primary drug threat in North America
– However (@SinEmbargoMX) April 14, 2023
“USA has announced a series of actions against those involved in the illicit trade in fentanyl.(…) In addition, the Department of Justice announced important indictments against fentanyl traffickers associated with the Sinaloa Cartel. The Treasury Department sanctioned five people and two entities involved in trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals from the People’s Republic of China,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The Trilateral Committee on Fentanyl met for the first time to guide action on the illicit fentanyl problem facing the North American region.
— SPR Informa (@SPRInforma) April 14, 2023
Also this Friday, the Department of Homeland Security of the United States has announced that, in the first month of the ‘Blue Lotus’ operation against drug trafficking have seized more than 4,000 pounds (about 1,800 kilograms) of fentanyl at the country’s borders, which is transported in cars and trucks in 90 percent of cases.
The operation has managed to arrest 156 people and has seized large quantities of other types of drugs such as methamphetamine (about 1 thousand 500 kilograms) o cocaine (about 450 kilograms).
????#LosChapitos They transported precursors from China to Central America and then to Mexico, where they transformed them into fentanyl, revealed Anne Milgram, head of the DEA, more than a month after AMLO assured that it is not produced in our country.
????@politicomxpic.twitter.com/KNZ11btt50— LupitaJuarez (@LupitaJuarezH) April 15, 2023