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 Mexico's cartels have for years diversified into a wide variety of
illicit activity, helped by porous domestic law enforcement agencies
as well as long-standing trafficking routes into the United States,
their biggest market.
Meanwhile, opioid deaths in the United States have soared over the
last two decades, driving a wave of government-backed efforts to
disrupt illegal distribution and treat addicts.
The DEA said that 27% of a sample of counterfeit pills tested in the
United States during the first three months of this year contained
potentially lethal doses of fentanyl.
The DEA did not specify what pills were being faked, but photos of
what it said it had seized showed mostly blue tablets stamped with
the letter "M" on one side, and containing the number "30" on the
other, similar to a brand of opioid oxycodone hydrochloride.
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"Capitalizing on the opioid epidemic and prescription drug abuse in
the United States, drug trafficking organizations are now sending
counterfeit pills made with fentanyl in bulk to the United States
for distribution," the DEA's acting head Uttam Dhillon said in a
statement.
Dhillon added that pills containing fentanyl and fentanyl-laced
heroin cause thousands of deaths every year in the United States.
(Reporting by David Alire Garcia, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
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