The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been conducting surveillance flights over Mexico using drones. These flights are part of a collaboration with Mexico in an effort to collect intelligence on cartels and fentanyl laboratories. A senior U.S. official disclosed this information.
Under the Biden administration, the use of MQ9 Reaper drones has been approved. According to the official, these drones are not equipped with weapons and are not intended for lethal purposes. The main objective of these flights over Mexico is to pinpoint the locations of fentanyl labs and cartels.
President Donald Trump’s administration continued the program, which is being done in coordination with the Mexican government.
Any intelligence gathered during these surveillance missions is shared with the Mexican government. Subsequently, it is up to the Mexican authorities to take action in shutting down any illegal operations associated with the cartels and laboratories.
Hundreds of pounds of fentanyl and meth seized near Ensenada in October arrive for officials from Mexicos attorney generals office to be unloaded at their headquarter in Tijuana, Mexico, Tuesday, October 18, 2022. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
He was apparently referring to thousands of drug labs detected in previous years in the hills and scrublands around Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa. Those clandestine, rural production sites were often bare-bones, improvised labs covered with tree branches and tarpaulins.
Now, the meth trade has become so lucrative and so sophisticated that Mexican meth is exported as far away as Hong Kong or Australia, and the cartels have found ways to avoid detection of their drug money.
Fentanyl production is also huge, though because it is a more potent drug, the volume is smaller.
Soldiers seized more than a half-million fentanyl pills in Culiacan in 2023, in what the army at the time described as the largest synthetic drug lab found to date.
Soldiers found almost 630,000 pills that appeared to contain fentanyl, the army said. They also reported seizing 282 pounds of powdered fentanyl and about 220 pounds of suspected methamphetamine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
