Tracing fentanyl’s path into the US starts at this port. It doesn’t end there.
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Sarah Matusek Staff writer
| Nogales, Ariz.; and Denver
Here at the port of Nogales, on the southern edge of the United States, deadly drugs hide among the $22 billion in goods that enter annually. A high-stakes sorting game plays out every day: discerning what needs more inspection without grinding global commerce to a halt.
Last fiscal year, the 12,000 pounds of fentanyl that customs officers seized in Arizona was more than at the rest of the country’s ports and border sectors combined. And within Arizona, the government says, the port of Nogales seized the most.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onFentanyl is the “most urgent drug threat” in the United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. A variety of people, from port staff to IRS agents, are tracing how the synthetic opioid gets into the country – and tracking it down once it’s inside.
“I think we’re doing a great job, but we can always use more people,” says Michael Humphries, the port director. But to conquer the epidemic, he says, “It’s going to take more than law enforcement.”
Fentanyl, up to 50 times more potent than heroin, is what the Drug Enforcement Administration calls the country’s “greatest and most urgent drug threat.” It’s also an issue President-elect Donald Trump says he’ll tackle through tariffs, terrorist designations, and military might.
Meanwhile, individuals tasked with tracking down the synthetic opioid are testing a range of solutions, from incorporating facial-scanning technology at ports of entry to investigating money laundering by criminal groups that traffic fentanyl in bulk.
Beneath the blaze of the Arizona sun, a customs official unboxes flour tortillas. He bends them back and forth, and their soft middles give. Proof that the stack hasn’t been hollowed out to hide drugs.
Across the border region in this state, powder and pills have been found inside the panels of cars. Stuffed in spare tires. Strapped to a teenager’s thighs with tape.
Here at the port of Nogales, on the southern edge of the United States, the deadly drugs hide among the $22 billion in goods that enter annually. A high-stakes sorting game plays out every day: discerning what needs more inspection without grinding global commerce to a halt.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onFentanyl is the “most urgent drug threat” in the United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. A variety of people, from port staff to IRS agents, are tracing how the synthetic opioid gets into the country – and tracking it down once it’s inside.
Last fiscal year, the 12,000 pounds of fentanyl that customs officers seized in Arizona was more than at the rest of the country’s ports and border sectors combined. And within Arizona, the government says, the port of Nogales seized the most.
“I think we’re doing a great job, but we can always use more people,” says Michael Humphries, the port director. But to conquer the epidemic, he says, “It’s going to take more than law enforcement.”
He cites “the whole of government, along with the medical community, along with counseling – and really, everybody” as stakeholders. The synthetic opioid is so strong that the port stocks an overdose-reversing spray for its staff, the public, and its drug-detection dogs.
It’s true: Arizona port authorities are catching prodigious amounts of fentanyl, making these ports responsible for more than half the seizures across the country by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
It’s also true: Fentanyl, and the chemicals that make it, gets in between the ports. Driven up interstates. Flown overhead on cargo flights.
And still: No one knows how much illicit fentanyl enters the U.S. all told. But synthetic opioids are linked to tens of thousands of deaths each year, of people addicted and not. Some fentanyl isn’t found at all. Not until it appears in coroner reports.
Fentanyl, up to 50 times more potent than heroin, is what the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) calls the country’s “greatest and most urgent drug threat.” It’s also an issue President-elect Donald Trump says he’ll tackle, through tariffs, terrorist designations, and military might. On Truth Social, he’s said he’ll work on a “large scale United States Advertising Campaign” on the dangers of the drug.
Supporters say imposing new penalties on enablers of the supply is justified, given the unrelenting stakes. Despite recent progress, the U.S. tracks more deaths involving synthetic opioids each year than the country’s deaths from the Vietnam War. Critics say it’s unfair for Mr. Trump to link illegal migration at the southern border with drug smuggling, given the bulk of fentanyl that is seized is found at official ports. Plus, they point out, most sentenced fentanyl traffickers are U.S. citizens.
Mr. Trump enters his second term at a time when Border Patrol encounters of unauthorized immigrants along the southern border are hovering around four-year lows, after historic highs under the Biden administration. Deaths involving fentanyl nationally also appear on the decline. Still, the ubiquity and lethality of the human-made drug remain a critical U.S. challenge.
“There is no single solution to this problem,” says David Luckey, a Rand senior researcher. He led a team that drafted a 2022 commission report on combatting fentanyl trafficking.
What’s required, he says, is a “concerted effort across all three dimensions: supply reduction, demand reduction, and harm reduction.”
How did we get here? Some analysts trace the opioid crisis back decades.
Back to a five-sentence note.
A swell of supply
The New England Journal of Medicine published a brief letter to the editor in January 1980. The authors wrote that, based on data they examined on painkiller use in hospitals, “The development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction.”
Experience taught Americans that isn’t true.
Researchers have found that the letter, a single paragraph, was “widely invoked” and “uncritically cited” as evidence that minimized risk of opioid addiction. An oversupply of prescription opioid pain medication followed in the mid-1990s, exposing millions of Americans to the drugs. Strong synthetic opioids, mostly illicit fentanyl, began to flood U.S. drug markets by around 2014, notes the commission report from Mr. Luckey’s team.
As American demand for opioids spread, international actors cashed in. Fentanyl used to come primarily from China, authorities say, but a 2019 crackdown there led producers to pivot. Now, they say, precursor chemicals shipped from China are used to make fentanyl in Mexico, which is then brought into the U.S. The DEA says two Mexican criminal networks are largely responsible for funneling in fentanyl – the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.
Part of the problem: Production is cheap. Fentanyl, which is synthetic, doesn’t require growing seasons like poppy-based heroin does. And its potency allows small quantities to yield high returns for criminal groups.
Drug overdose deaths peaked in the U.S. in 2022 with over 111,000, a figure higher than the deaths that year from car crashes and guns combined.
Modest progress, based on provisional data, was announced this spring. The federal government estimates that 2023 saw 107,543 drug overdose deaths – a 3% decline from the year prior. Though 7 in 10 of those deaths still involve synthetic opioids, last year’s decrease in overdose deaths was the first since 2018. Additional data through part of 2024 seems to support this downward trend.
Expanded access to naloxone, an opioid overdose-reversing drug, is credited with helping lower deaths. The DEA has touted arrests of Mexican criminal leaders and a dip in the potency of fentanyl-laced pills.
Despite growing social awareness of fentanyl’s risks, stigma persists. Some people who’ve lost loved ones prefer the term “poisoning” to “overdose,” to shift blame off victims who may have assumed a pill was safe.
That was the case for Weston, says Anne Fundner. In 2022, the California mother lost her high schooler son to a drug poisoning involving fentanyl, following what she says was peer pressure.
Ms. Fundner repurposed her grief to speak at the Republican National Convention in support of Mr. Trump. She has amplified his call for heightened border security and urged families to be on alert. Without sufficient action from the government, she says, it’s fallen on parents to do what they can.
“I was very angry for a while,” she says. Now, through her activism, she points to a feeling of peace. “My son’s life is saving other lives.”
Paths into the country
At the port of Nogales, the search for the hidden drugs churns on. Mr. Humphries watches trucks heave to a halt at checkpoints, and then growl past. He ambles by towers of avocado crates pulled aside for more inspection – if not for drugs, then for pests and disease. At the port of Nogales, tens of millions of pounds of produce enter every day.
Customs and Border Protection employs what it calls “layered enforcement,” a series of possible points of inspection. That includes license plate scans, X-rays, sniffing canines, and undercarriage mirrors. The agency, along with the wider Department of Homeland Security, has also explored uses of artificial intelligence, including a pilot of face-scan technology at the port of Nogales. A government watchdog has raised potential privacy concerns around the agency’s use of tech.
Still, old-school observation plays a role. Mr. Humphries’ staff looks for drivers who appear nervous or maintain a “death grip” on the steering wheel.
Court records detailing cases of alleged drug “mules” – people who transport drugs through the border – underscore the signs officials seek. One American “would not make eye contact” with a customs officer at inspection, reads a criminal complaint.
U.S. citizens like her make up the vast majority of people sentenced for fentanyl trafficking – 86.4% in fiscal year 2023, reports the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Traffickers take advantage of low-income, struggling Americans whose passports might help them pass through a port easier, experts say.
But some contraband is coming through the air. A Reuters investigation found that fentanyl precursor chemicals – the substances used to make the drug – often arrive to the U.S. as air cargo in packages small enough to evade a certain threshold of inspection. From the U.S., the precursor chemicals are often sent into Mexico, and then reenter the U.S. ready for consumption.
When fentanyl first came on the radar of the federal postal service, a decade ago, it was mostly seized in international mail. That trend shifted in 2019, when China banned production of the drug. As of fiscal year 2024, nearly all of the 3,844 pounds of suspected synthetic opioids seized by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service came in domestic mail.
Postal inspectors partner with other federal agencies in southwest border states to stave off the drug’s journey into the interior.
“We don’t want to be the unwitting accomplice to narcotics being delivered to anywhere in this country,” says Daniel Adame, inspector in charge at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
State and local law enforcement are another line of defense. In Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Mark Dannels says his team finds fentanyl two ways.
The first is through “proactive policing,” such as at traffic stops, says the sheriff. “The second part is when we respond to a death.”
The head of the Border Patrol, which operates between official ports of entry, said this month that fentanyl is a top priority. (That along with the southern border arrival of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, which officials across the country say is committing violent crime.)
Jim Chilton tracks a fraction of all border crossers evading the Border Patrol. The Arizona rancher has seen a surge under the Biden administration – at least 3,700 people, by his count – through his motion-activated trail cameras. They enter through a gap in the border wall, often in matching camouflage, and pass through saguaros and mesquite trees on his land. He says he’s learned from the Border Patrol that some pack drugs; an agency spokesperson says they can’t confirm.
“You really don’t know who all’s coming across the border, including the possibility of terrorists,” says Mr. Chilton. Along with the installation of more patrols and surveillance, he says, “I hope that Trump finishes the wall.”
Trump’s plans
Beyond more border wall, Mr. Trump has signaled what else may come. He’s called for designating major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. He’s also threatened new tariffs against China (10%) along with Mexico and Canada (25% each) unless those countries do more to stop outflows of fentanyl – and migrants, from the latter two.
Faced with claims of enabling fentanyl supply, officials from both China and Mexico have reprimanded the U.S. for enabling the drug’s demand.
“No one will win a trade war or a tariff war,” said a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington. In an emailed statement, they pointed to resumed communication between the countries’ counternarcotics authorities since a presidential summit in 2023.
Addressing fentanyl trafficking requires bilateral cooperation that is “respectful of the sovereignties of Mexico and the United States,” a spokesperson for the Mexican Embassy in Washington said in an emailed statement. They also noted the creation of a new national intelligence system in Mexico to enhance targeting of clandestine labs and supervision at ports.
Mr. Trump’s supporters have endorsed his approach ahead of inauguration and say it’s already having an effect. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago. A Trump call with Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was followed by what Mexican officials said was the largest fentanyl seizure in their history. The Mexican Embassy spokesperson, however, says the operation was not a direct response to the tariff threat, but rather part of a domestic security effort.
At The Heritage Foundation, Steve Yates, a senior research fellow, says funds from tariffs could be put toward expanded interdiction or families who’ve lost ones to the drug. The epidemic is personal for him; in 2023, his daughter died from a drug poisoning involving fentanyl.
Regarding China, “The surest way to fail is to fall short of taking heavy action against what we know they’re doing now, without stopping,” says Mr. Yates, an informal adviser to the Trump campaign and transition team. He points to a bipartisan report released in April from the House of Representatives’ select committee on China. The report concludes that, by subsidizing fentanyl chemical exports, China is fueling the fentanyl crisis in the U.S.
Such claims run “completely counter to facts and reality,” said the Chinese Embassy spokesperson.
Mr. Yates says domestic drug demand needs attention, too. But he says the U.S. is playing defense “unless you can do something significant about the supply chain.”
Trump critics, including several economists, argue retaliatory tariffs could harm U.S. consumers. Peter Andreas, a political scientist at Brown University, chalks Mr. Trump’s tariff talk up to “recklessly irresponsible diplomacy,” especially regarding Mexico, whose economy is dependent on the U.S.
“Nothing would actually put more pressure on the border and stimulate migration more than if Mexico’s economy went south,” says Professor Andreas, author of “Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America.”
At various points in history, U.S. administrations have alternately prioritized drug enforcement or migration control, says Professor Andreas. That may soon change, as the next president signals both are front-burner issues, he adds.
The catch: The prior Trump and Biden administrations put drug trafficking “on the back burner,” he says, “because they needed Mexican cooperation on stopping migration.” Analysts credit Mexico’s increased immigration enforcement with helping lower illegal border crossings over the past year.
At his office, Mr. Humphries displays a symbol of one of Mexico’s challenges: ammunition for a .50-caliber gun. His officers regularly seize the military-grade weaponry heading south, for presumed use by cartels. Mexico has sued U.S. gun companies with accusations that they’ve fueled illegal arms trafficking to violent criminal groups. It’s a case the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear.
Mr. Humphries holds the bullet up, half the length of his face.
“If we’re tasked with going after the cartels, we have to work both inbound and outbound,” he says.
Beyond shifts in diplomacy, though, the military may come into play.
Mr. Trump’s campaign website says he “will impose a total naval embargo on cartels.” The Republican Party platform, meanwhile, calls for “the U.S. Navy to impose a full Fentanyl Blockade on the waters of our Region – boarding and inspecting ships to look for fentanyl and fentanyl precursors.”
The Trump transition team did not directly address clarifying questions about his fentanyl plans, including the use of the Navy. In response to an interview request, the Navy referred the Monitor to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Essentially, the Coast Guard – not the Navy – has law enforcement authority for drug interdiction at sea, like apprehensions of suspects or vessels, says Comdr. Cory Riesterer at the Coast Guard’s Maritime Law Enforcement program. (The Navy, as part of the Defense Department, can support the law enforcement activities of the Coast Guard, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security.)
However, says the commander, “We don’t see fentanyl or precursors being smuggled much in the maritime environment.”
In fact, Coast Guard data reviewed by the Monitor shows zero fentanyl seizures in fiscal year 2024. And only one seizure of fentanyl – roughly a quarter of a pound – was reported since fiscal year 2017. Throughout that span of years, the agency says, it administered naloxone during its operations six times.
Though the numbers are small, that means the Coast Guard responds to suspected opioid overdoses more often than it seizes fentanyl.
Following the money
When batches of fentanyl manage to get past the port of Nogales – or come through other routes – the enforcement efforts shift into interior states.
Some corners of the country have not yet seen a reduction in overdose deaths involving fentanyl. That includes Colorado, whose health department reports a record 1,097 such overdose deaths in 2023, though initial 2024 data shows signs of a downward trend.
As of early December, Denver police say they’ve seized more than 170 pounds of fentanyl in 2024. At the state level, meanwhile, the Colorado State Patrol reports seizing more than 300 pounds of fentanyl – largely along two interstates that crisscross the state.
Regionally, the DEA Rocky Mountain Field Division, which covers Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado, says it has seized a record of around 2.7 million fentanyl pills in 2024. Put another way, that’s more than three per every Denver resident.
Again, the profit margins are steep. The regional DEA office says fentanyl pills produced for 2 cents to 4 cents in Mexico can sell for $1 to $5 in Colorado. In northern Montana, the price can ratchet up to $60 a pill.
Sellers have even sold to minors, sometimes through social media apps, after marketing pills cut with fentanyl as legitimate prescription drugs.
Cartels “don’t care,” says Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge. “It’s about greed.”
Some in the state are trying to chase criminal drug money.
In a high-rise office in downtown Denver, a poster above the printer reads as a morale boost.
“Only an Accountant Could Catch Al Capone.”
This is the Internal Revenue Service unit focused on investigating crimes. And officials here see themselves as on the front lines of deterring illicit drug flows. They are keen to tout how the IRS brought down the Chicago gangster on tax evasion nearly a century ago. Their work today has direct parallels, as they investigate activity such as money laundering by drug criminals.
The idea is to target what they care about most.
“There is no one peddling fentanyl without the motivation of money,” says Johnathan Towle, assistant special agent in charge for the IRS Criminal Investigation Denver Field Office.
The agency has partnered here with the DEA on an outreach campaign to money-services businesses for help investigating drug proceeds. The IRS is part of a broader initiative with the Treasury Department to educate regional and local banks on the digital fingerprints that fentanyl trafficking can leave on accounts.
Another complication comes from the use of common phone apps and cryptocurrency to buy and sell drugs like fentanyl. That said, the IRS has special expertise to “decode the funding,” says Mr. Towle.
The belief that cryptocurrency is anonymous – and can’t be tracked by the government?
“That’s wrong,” he says. “We can.”
