Fentanyl: A senior Mexican official recognizes that the country ‘is the champion’ in the drug production

The statement by the head of the Criminal Investigation Agency contradicts the position maintained by President López Obrador

A senior official from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has admitted that Mexico “is the champion” in the https://english.elpais.com/usa/2024-01-14/fentanyl-the-portrait-of-a-mass-murderer.html Felipe de Jesús Gallo, the head of the Criminal Investigation Agency, is the first member of this administration to openly recognize the problem that the country faces with this synthetic drug, according to the Associated Press.

The remarks run counter to past statements by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who first denied that fentanyl was being produced in Mexico, although he later opened up a window on the issue on a TV interview with CBS’ Sixty Minutes. “The main problem in the United States today, from my point of view, is drug consumption and especially the consumption of fentanyl,” he said. Then the president claimed that the program had edited his words, and broadcast an excerpt where he contradicted himself and pointed out that in his country “fentanyl is not produced” and that “only the precursors arrive.”

The words of the head of the largest Mexican investigation agency, attached to the FGR, resonate more forcefully. “Mexico has been the champion of methamphetamine production, and now fentanyl,” Gallo said this Tuesday at the International Conference on Synthetic Drugs. “It has been the greatest provider of wealth and power for various criminal organizations. We have arrived at business models as innovative or as old and archaic as barter, ‘I’ll exchange precursors for methamphetamines to avoid the money trail,’” he added.