DEA Let 1.8 Million Fentanyl Pills Reach New Mexico Streets to Build Bigger Cases
Updated
Updated · The Associated Press · Jun 25
DEA Let 1.8 Million Fentanyl Pills Reach New Mexico Streets to Build Bigger Cases
3 articles · Updated · The Associated Press · Jun 25
Summary
Records and agent accounts reviewed by AP show the DEA allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills — and in one whistleblower estimate at least 1.8 million — to go unseized in New Mexico from 2023 to 2025.
Agents tracked shipments in real time but held back to build larger trafficking cases, a tactic former U.S. Attorney Alex Uballez defended as necessary to target bigger organizations with limited resources.
A June 2023 Albuquerque deal alone involved 74,000 pills that agents counted and watched change hands, while a former supervisor said "millions" more were allowed through before a 2025 takedown seized over 3 million pills.
The strategy clashed with 2017 Justice Department fentanyl protocols directing agents to seize the drug "as soon as practicable"; those rules were loosened in 2024 to give investigators more discretion.
Whistleblower agent David Howell said the DEA's inaction "100% got people killed," but the agency called the decisions lawful and a Justice Department review found no specific public-health danger.