On Tuesday, Attorney General Pamela Bondi held a press conference announcing a week-long, multi-agency and multi-law enforcement and tribal operation headed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the New Mexico District Attorney’s Office. The operation resulted in huge drug busts and multiple arrests of high-level members of the Sinaloa cartel.
According to Bondi, the agents garnered 11.5 kilos of fentanyl, including three million fentanyl pills — the largest seizure in the nation's history.
The main head of the Sinaloa cartel, Alberto Salazar Amaya, was arrested along with five others, all in the country illegally. Amaya was arrested in Salem, Oregon, along with five million dollars in cash, luxury automobiles, and other contraband. The illicit drugs, which included methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin, were seized in four states: New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.
"These pills were stamped as oxycodone. Let that sink in. Three million pills going on our streets. Three million pills, the streets of our country, laced with fentanyl, labeled as oxycodone. And, they were in all different strengths of fentanyl within them."
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Bondi was joined on the dais by the agents instrumental to the success of the operation, as well as the New Mexico District Attorney, the DEA Deputy Administrator, and the head of the El Paso, Texas, DEA office.
"This is a really dangerous job that these DEA agents face every day, but they are getting very dangerous drugs off of our streets each day. They are flooding our cities with a weapon of mass destruction: fentanyl. And when we catch you, like all of these individuals, if convicted, we will put you behind bars, there will be no negotiating, and we will lock you up for as long as humanly possible. We will not negotiate with those who are killing our family members, including brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, parents, friends. Everyone in this room, I guarantee you, knows someone who has been afflicted with drug addiction, and many who have known someone who has lost a loved one because of this trash on our streets."
Bondi praised the over 55,000 hours of law enforcement investigation required to make this type of takedown and seizure possible, praised the bravery of the DEA agents, and thanked the "extraordinary leadership" of the DEA principal deputy administrator Robert Murphy, the DEA El Paso division chief and agent in charge Omar Arellano, and the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Ryan Ellison.
Bondi discussed a tour she made with law enforcement of a DEA laboratory. She noted that the precursor for fentanyl is made in China and shipped to Mexico, where the cartels produce the powder. Bondi warned how quickly the cartels can manufacture and make fentanyl powder and lace it into pills and other forms of drugs: Xanax, Adderall, Molly (the party drug), cocaine, and marijuana. Bondi assessed that 75,000 Americans die each year from fentanyl poisoning. It is the number one cause of death for adults aged 18-34.
Bondi concluded and warned:
"More seizures are coming, more arrests are coming, I guarantee you that. And these dealers, these sellers, these street-level sellers better look out because we will not be negotiating with you. We will bring you to justice, and we will not stop until this poison is off of our streets and our country."
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