Puerto Vallarta (PVDN) – President Andrés Manuel López of Mexico denied that criminal groups use migrants to traffic fentanyl to the United States, and acknowledges Puerto Vallarta is the main route of the drug to the border.
In a press conference from Chiapas, the president responded to a reporter’s questions about whether fentanyl was trafficked by migrants crossing the southern border of Mexico towards the United States.
“The fentanyl thing is more through the Pacific ports. Migrants have nothing to do with fentanyl. They leave out of necessity and abandon their family to find a life. They do not do it for pleasure.”
In recent years, fentanyl has become the preferred drug of the Mexican cartels trafficking it to the United States due to its potency, which authorities such as the DEA warn, is 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times more powerful than heroin, which makes it one of the most popular drugs and generates million-dollar profit margins.
According to the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena), the entry route for fentanyl and chemical precursors for its production, as the president said today, is the Pacific and, fundamentally, ports like Lázaro Cárdenas, in Michoacán, and Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco.
These ports have become the main entrance not only for fentanyl but for other drugs, such as cocaine, and illegal products such as contraband cigarettes.
CJNG, the most benefited from the manufacture of fentanyl
A study in the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico indicates that the criminal organization most favored by the arrival of chemicals from China to Mexico to manufacture fentanyl is the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) due to the criminal control it exercises in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, although the Sinaloa Cartel has also gained relevance in this illegal activity.
Currently, Sedena has identified three routes for trafficking fentanyl from Mexico to the US.
One of them is the Pacific Route that starts mainly from the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán or, through Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. From there the precursors move to Sinaloa towards the border to Sonoyta, Sonora; San Luis Rio Colorado Sonora; Mexicali, Baja California and Tijuana, Baja California.
Also, there is the route of the Baj California Peninsula, which takes the chemicals to Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, or directly to Mazatlán, Sinaloa, towards Baja California Sur and they are transferred to the US border points.
Finally, there is a route not yet well identified through the Central Zone of the country that could connect the entities of Mexico City, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Nuevo León, and Coahuila.
