The federal government failed to seize thousands of fentanyl pills in New Mexico that it was monitoring between 2023 and 2025, according to a whistleblower complaint.
Citing three current and former Drug Enforcement Administration agents, The Associated Press reported that agents repeatedly monitored shipments of fentanyl pills in New Mexico but failed to seize them even as the deals were completed.
The agency had hoped to track the shipments and make larger-scale seizures, but that did not happen.
Critics point out that although such tactics have been used in the past with drugs like cocaine and heroin, fentanyl is much more lethal, even in small doses.
"We poisoned our community to make cases," DEA Special Agent David Howell told the AP. "Through our own willful blindness, we get to say, 'We don't really know what happened to the drugs.' But we 100% got people killed."
According to the Centers for Disease Control, fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. It has been one of the primary drivers of overdose deaths in the U.S. in recent years.
"Synthetic opioids like fentanyl contribute to nearly 70% of overdose deaths. Even in small doses, it can be deadly," the CDC stated.
Fentanyl is sometimes mixed with other drugs and users may not have an understanding of what they are taking for how much risk they face.
"Drugs may contain deadly levels of fentanyl, and you wouldn't be able to see it, taste it, or smell it. It is nearly impossible to tell if drugs have been mixed with fentanyl unless you test your drugs with fentanyl test strips," the CDC stated.
The AP noted that the lethality of fentanyl challenged some of the DEA's long-established tactics. The agency, knowing that it can't seize every illicit drug shipment, had in the past allowed drug transactions to be completed. The strategy was meant to allow agents to trace the drug supply chain and make large-scale busts.
Alex Uballez, who served as U.S. attorney in New Mexico from 2022 through last year, acknowledged the practice, the AP reported. Last year, the DEA did record the largest fentanyl bust in history in Albuquerque.
"The bigger fish are worth catching, and that will save more lives," Uballez told the AP.
In a statement to the AP, the DEA said, "Public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts."
The DEA said the investigations involved court-authorized wiretaps "in which agents and prosecutors conducted real-time surveillance, intelligence gathering, and operational analysis targeting larger drug trafficking organizations."
