“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
Drug agency sees criminal organizations affecting health through fentanyl trafficking
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on Friday identified the Mexican Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) as the main threats “to health and communities” in US territory.
In a report on the agency’s foreign operations, the DEA recalled that in September last year it created a unit dedicated exclusively to pursuing and dismantling the efforts of these two “transnational” organizations to traffic “fentanyl and methamphetamines” into the US.
The kidnapping of four Americans and the murder of two of them in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas in early March has reignited the debate in the US about Mexican cartels.
A group of Republican legislators called for drug trafficking organizations to be classified as terrorist groups, a measure that the State Department does not rule out and which has been harshly criticized by the Mexican government.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard even traveled to Washington on March 13 to meet with the country’s consuls in the U.S. and launch a communication strategy to refute the proposal of the congressmen of the opposition party.
The US State Department has listed organizations such as the Islamic State (IS), Hamas and the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) as foreign terrorist groups.