The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has asked the U.S. Justice Department’s internal watchdog to investigate claims that DEA agents permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to hit the streets of New Mexico.
Investigation and Controversy
The request came days after an Associated Press investigation found that agents repeatedly monitored, but did not seize, major shipments of the synthetic opioid in a bid to build bigger criminal cases between 2023 and 2025. Current and former DEA agents told the AP that this investigative strategy, known as letting the counterfeit painkillers ‘walk’, amounted to a gamble with public safety in a state ravaged by the fentanyl epidemic and may have violated Justice Department rules intended to safeguard communities from a drug the White House last year designated as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham asked the state’s attorney general to examine whether the agency’s actions violated New Mexico law, an extraordinary challenge to a federal law enforcement agency at a time when fentanyl remains one of the country’s deadliest public health threats. ‘There are no words to describe how reckless and dangerous these decisions were,’ Lujan Grisham said in a statement. ‘Make no mistake: the DEA knew people would die if these pills made it into New Mexico communities, and the agency let it happen anyway.’
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
