Homeland Security launches ‘Operation Blue Lotus’ to target fentanyl

Homeland Security launches “Operation Blue Lotus” to target fentanyl - The Washington Post
The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday it has intensified efforts to stop fentanyl trafficking across the country’s southern border, launching “Operation Blue Lotus” with hundreds of U.S. agents and officers. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the campaign during a visit to the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales, Ariz., which has surpassed San Diego this year to become the busiest U.S. gateway for fentanyl smuggling. Traffickers stuff packages of cheaply produced, extremely potent fentanyl tablets into hidden vehicle compartments, hide them in loads of produce or duct-tape the drugs to the torsos of pedestrians and bus passengers. U.S. authorities are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to install powerful new scanning machines along the southern border, including two in Nogales, that will allow for a tenfold increase in the number of commercial vehicles they can screen. But fentanyl remains very difficult to detect. Its compact size makes it easy to conceal, and its low manufacturing cost allows traffickers to turn a profit despite losing some of their loads to seizures. “We are matching this unprecedented challenge with unprecedented solutions,” Mayorkas said, calling fentanyl “the drug of death.” Joined by Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), Mayorkas said the new operation will prioritize what he called “smart border security” and “take the fight to the cartels and the smuggling traffickers of this drug.” More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, a record, and two-thirds of those deaths were caused by fentanyl, according to the most recent available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. President Biden’s Republican critics blame his border policies for the crisis, saying U.S. authorities are too busy to stop illegal drugs from entering the United States because they’re contending with record numbers of migrants. Biden officials say their efforts against fentanyl traffickers amount to the most successful U.S. disruption campaign ever, citing record seizure amounts and a flurry of recent arrests. Between its launch on March 13 and March 19, Operation Blue Lotus led to 18 arrests and the seizure of more than 900 pounds of fentanyl, more than 700 pounds of methamphetamines, and more than 100 pounds of cocaine, DHS officials said. Last year, U.S. authorities confiscated more than 14,000 pounds of illegal fentanyl along the southwest border, a record, and this year’s seizure totals are on pace to easily eclipse that amount. U.S. crossings in southern Arizona now account for more than half of all the fentanyl seized along the U.S. southern border, the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show. DHS officials say they want to boost arrests and prosecutions, with the ultimate goal of dismantling the larger criminal networks that are manufacturing and distributing illegal fentanyl across the United States. The synthetic opioid is abundant on U.S. streets, where it’s sold in bright blue tablets for a few dollars apiece. The pills, known as “M-30s” or “blues,” are fake versions of the 30-milligram oxycodone tablets made by U.S. opioid manufacturer Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, one of the nation’s oldest drugmakers. Mexico’s two most powerful crime syndicates, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartels, now dominate the illegal fentanyl trade, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The top CBP official at the Nogales port of entry, Michael Humphries, has been publishing photos of large fentanyl busts on his Twitter page, including two shipments Friday and Saturday totaling 2.5 million pills. “CBP is on the frontline of stopping fentanyl and other illegal narcotics that are primarily trafficked through Ports of Entry,” said CBP acting commissioner Troy Miller in a statement. “Our dedicated personnel are already seizing record amounts of fentanyl, and we continue to make the interdiction of cross border smuggling one of our top priorities.” During his State of the Union address last month, Biden pledged to combat fentanyl “with more drug detection machines,” and the White House 2024 budget proposal includes $305 million for new scanners. The equipment, known as “non-intrusive inspection” technology, or NII, uses X-rays of varying intensity to quickly screen commercial and passenger vehicles for suspicious anomalies that could be drug loads. Mexican trafficking organizations produce the pills in clandestine laboratories using precursor chemicals typically imported from China, according to U.S. authorities. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted in recent days that his country is merely a transshipment point for fentanyl, not a producer of the drug. His statements, belied by evidence that cartel chemists are producing the drug, have generated disbelief and frustration on both sides of the border. Last weekend a dozen Republican and Democratic lawmakers met for several hours with López Obrador in Mexico City to discuss the fentanyl crisis, among other topics. López Obrador, also known as AMLO, told lawmakers he would speak with Chinese authorities to discuss strategies to crack down on fentanyl smuggling, according to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.) who was part of the group. “He said: I’ll ask China to stop sending fentanyl to Mexico, and I’ll do this in a formal way,” Cuellar said in an interview.