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In Mexico, there is already evidence that the activities of criminal groups have moved from fentanyl emergency According to researchers Carlos Pérez-Ricard and Arantxa Ibarrola García, in the United States
The entry of fentanyl into the Mexican market is yet another example of how fentanyl entered the Mexican market. criminal network Experts Carlos Pérez-Ricard and Arancha Ibarola García assured the country that they had managed to understand changes in drug flows around the world and adapt to the same.in his analysis transition to fentanyl, pointed out Prosperity fentanyl is given in context Open up domestic medical and recreational marijuana markets In the United States, it has been legalized in 17 of the 50 federal states.
“It’s too early to understand the true impact of this phenomenon on rural Mexico, but it’s safe to say that the business has relatively little relevance across rural Mexico. drug trafficking In Mexico,” they warned. The best measure to support this claim is the amount of marijuana confiscated by Mexican authorities: In 2010, 34,880 tons were confiscated, compared to just 244 tons in 2022.
new drug business
The analysis was published in Journal of Social Sciences, The professor at the University of the Republic of Uruguay noted that growing demand for synthetic opiates in the United States has led to a decline in Mexico’s demand for heroin and crude opium over the past decade.
The first signs of Mexico getting involved in the fentanyl business date back to 2016. Sedna 15kg of fentanyl was seized. There was a significant increase between 2017 and 2019, but between 2020 and 2022, fentanyl seizures increased exponentially.
In February 2023, the Mexican Army and National Guard seized 530,000 fentanyl pills, 150 kilograms of chemical precursor (acetaminophen) and 30kg of powdered fentanyl; over items confiscated between 2016-1019.
According to the analysis authors, at least two major drug trafficking organizations are involved in the fentanyl trade: Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CICC). “In any case, they are not hierarchical organizations, but maintain networks. Even so, these groups retain the ability to invest in building secret laboratory“.
The Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG by 2023 They have experimented with more than 50 chemicals in search of the same effects as fentanyl. Despite CJNG and Sinaloa’s dominance in the market, CJNG and Sinaloa’s database Monitor PDDsthe Center for Economic Research and Teaching’s Drug Policy Program Open Source Monitoring (CIDE)profiles dozens of organizations already involved in fentanyl and other markets through at least 2022 Synthetic Opioids.
The groups operate in areas that have historically been at the center of marijuana and opium cultivation. Of the 40 related events – large Fentanyl-Associated Seizures and Arrests– Registered in the work report of the Minister of Defense (Sedna) and public safety reports showed 21 incidents in Sonora, 13 in Baja California and four in Sinaloa.
In Sonora state, the incidents took place in the cities of Opodepe, San Luis Rio Colorado and Nogales. In Baja California, it happened in Tijuana, Tecate and San Quentin. Between December 2019 and March 2023, the Mexican Army dismantled 1,206 clandestine laboratories. Of these, 1,071 are located in Sinaloa. That is, 88.81% of all dismantled laboratories were located within the same entity of the Republic.
Report DEA The federal government is aware that most of the chemical precursors from China and other Asian countries arrive at the ports of Manzanillo (Colima) and Lazaro Cardenas (Michoacan) in the Mexican Pacific region. Commodities are concentrated in several points. This is in stark contrast to cocaine from South America, which has a more diverse reach.
criminal organization restructuring
in his analysis transition to fentanyl, The researchers propose three hypotheses: fragmentation and downscaling of organizational size, attraction of professional cadres to work in laboratories, and separation of organizations from society by displacing their territorial anchorages from independent dynamics. crop.
Criminal organizations that have fragmented, downsized, turned to the fentanyl market or made it a fundamental part of their business models are often smaller than their predecessors. In general, they are more compact organizations that rely on a smaller number of nodes to perform their operations. This also allows it to spread.
Since the second decade of this century, the proliferation and fragmentation of organizations has become a dynamic in the Mexican panorama. The causal mechanism has nothing to do with the type of product they trade, but rather with the Mexican state’s anti-drug policy, which focuses on beheading criminal organizations, so-called criminal organizations. Kingpin strategy.
As of 2020, Mexico’s crime map consists of two national organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG, in addition to dozens of splinters from four discrete groups: The Zetas, the Gulf Cartel, Beltran Leyva and the Michokana family. The map was done by regional or local groups not directly related to the above organizations.
Although it is too early to solidify conclusive evidence, based on newspaper analysis and official reports, Perez-Ricard and Ibarola García argue that the influence of fentanyl and synthetic drugs on the market has deepened the influence of criminal organizations. split phenomenon.
These networks also operate more horizontally. Over the past two years, references to groups that did not exist before have become more frequent, and the links between these criminal networks and the CJNG and Sinaloa Cartels have been less clear—even to authorities is also like this.
In a dynamic and flexible market, linkages between semi-autonomous groups and large organizations are always changing. However, it is clear that the perfect vertical organization of production and distribution chains is more of a pipe dream than a reality.
This dynamic is not linear, nor does it apply to the entire drug trafficking chain.National Intelligence Center Report (China National Intelligence Service) From the end of 2022, to report the concentration of Fentanyl Production Chemicals Supply Market.
According to this report, there are 3 legally incorporated companies in Mexico (Company and Contact Ram, Company Escomexa and Grupo Pochteca) indiscriminately supplies CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel with precursors such as non-protein nitrogen (National NP), aniline, propionyl chloride and 4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine (ANPP).
The fact that the same company is a supplier to two rival criminal groups shows that while synthetic opiate production and distribution chains tend to be fragmented, the chemical supply market continues to be reduced to a handful of players.
Experts pointed out that organizations tend to professionalize cadres. “As he crime map The data shows that the professional cadre team presents a trend of specialization. “
The need to sinter fentanyl or find a suitable precursor led organizations to seek collaborators with specialized backgrounds.
Over the past two years, there has been evidence that criminal groups funded vocational research by their members medicinal chemistryto gain expertise that would enable them to illicitly produce fentanyl, and to hire engineers who graduated from major universities.
Pérez-Ricard and Ibarra García argue that, unlike poppy and marijuana cultivation, the synthesis of synthetic opioids does not need to be as territorial as traditional marijuana and poppy cultivation, that is, physically operated over a wide area.
Today, fentanyl is the leading cause of death for people ages 18 to 49 in the United States. Fentanyl overdoses kill more people than suicides, shootings or car accidents.
The crisis of deaths from opioid overdose in the United States has reignited the moral panic that other drugs caused in the country in the middle of the last century. In 2021, 107,622 people will die from overdoses, a 94% increase from 2019. 82.3% of these cases involved synthetic opioids (CDC). This number is increasing every year, and predictably, we have not yet reached the top of the wave.
According to the U.S. federal government, more than 9 million people abused the substance in 2020. In addition, there are other health risks associated with taking synthetic opioids, such as spikes in infectious diseases, mental disorders, and cases of hepatitis C and HIV.
Two factors have allowed Mexican criminal groups to fully embrace the fentanyl industry. On the one hand, the Chinese government and the international community have begun to impose increasing restrictions to stop the opioid trade; on the other, Covid-19 and the disruption it has caused to global trade supply chains. Mexican groups understand that now is their moment.he nearshoring arrive.
For decades, Mexico’s role on the international stage was limited to the cultivation and export of crude opium (as well as heroin and its derivatives) and marijuana. Despite the fact that opium and cannabis are grown in at least a dozen areas, two stand out throughout the national territory.
First, the so-called Golden Triangle, made up of the mountains on the border of the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango. It was in that inaccessible or inaccessible mountain range that poppy cultivation began on a large scale in the 1940s.
Since at least 1939, it has also been the center of eradication missions led by the Mexican Army and US agents. The region’s lack of statehood — another long-standing factor — has contributed to the fact that the Golden Triangle remains ideal for growing marijuana. The two factories also operate clandestine laboratories that turn opium into heroin. This minimal infrastructure works great for fentanyl.
Another area historically associated with poppy and cannabis cultivation is the state of Guerrero. Two spaces stand out: on the one hand, the western part of the state, where the Costa Grande River and the Caliente Islands meet, and on the east, the Montana region, which is connected to the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Puerto Rico. bordering the state of Ebla.