Feds to target cartels, fentanyl imports in El Paso trade corridor

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – As federal officials surge resources and seize more drugs in California and Arizona, they fear Mexican drug cartels will shift their smuggling pipeline east.

That’s why they’re bringing not one but three major interdiction operations to the El Paso region. The goal is to stem the flow of fentanyl, apprehend cartel bosses and keep them from lawfully importing into the U.S. the tools and chemicals their associates use to produce their poison stateside.

“Through our multi-layered approach, we are exerting significant pressure against (transnational criminal organizations) in the west,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Troy A. Miller said during a Thursday visit to El Paso. “While that is good for our enforcement efforts, it could mean these organizations will shift their tactics, pushing their operations further east to stay primed for profit.”

Fentanyl seizures in the El Paso Sector already are up 17 percent this year, Miller said. Nationwide, they almost doubled last year compared to 2022.

Last April, CBP set in motion Operation Plaza Strike in Arizona and expanded Operation Apollo east from Southern California. Plaza Strike targets specific cartel leaders on the Mexican side. In Arizona, CBP identified an alleged cartel boss known as “Don Gio” and went after his assets and associates in the U.S.

Operation Plaza Strike is coming to El Paso-Juarez next. It will identify cartel targets through investigation and tips from the public and will share that information with the Mexican government.

Miller said cartels also smuggle migrants into the U.S. and he promised to ramp up investigations of the growing number of migrant deaths in the region. That could lead to charges against smugglers when an individual who put his or her life in their hands to attain the American dream dies.

Operation Apollo has led to multiple seizures of fentanyl and other illicit drugs in Arizona this year. It merges intelligence on cartel activities south of the border with state-of-the-art technology at ports of entry to seize the loads before they reach inland American communities.

Apollo is coming to El Paso next along with additional tech tools such as handheld scanners for CBP officers inspecting passenger vehicles crossing the border and more super-sized X-ray machines to see inside thousands of cargo trucks coming over every week.

“CBP ‘jump teams’ across the Southwest border will go to the threats. We will use that intelligence not only to find and seize fentanyl but also uncover supply chains so we can determine where it’s coming from and where it’s headed,” Miller said.

The fact that migrant apprehensions are back to early 2021 levels means CBP can afford to surge agents to counter-narcotics tasks, the acting commissioner said. In the previous three years, Border Patrol union leaders complained field agents were being pulled from their posts to take care of migrants at processing centers.

Separately, Homeland Security Investigations in El Paso is taking a leading role in Operation Chainbreaker. Its goal is to identify those who legally import chemicals and pill presses – part by part – to make fentanyl in the United States.

“We know they attempt to bring drugs across our ports of entry through traditional means, but we also know they try to bring the components by which they make fentanyl – pill presses, the dyes – in the United States,” said Jason T. Stevens, acting special agent in charge of HSI in El Paso. “We are looking at where (machine parts and chemicals) are going, and who they are going to.”

Last summer, Drug Enforcement Administrator Anne Milgram told a House subcommittee Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels have a presence in every state in America and several foreign countries.

Stevens said cartels have people familiar with U.S. laws and have figured out ways to transfer some of their fentanyl production into any state in America.

“They’re exploiting our customs (system); they’re bringing in things that are legal to bring and they’re bringing them in separately. We are looking not only at the pill presses or the parts, we’re also looking at the chemicals they’re bringing in as well and we’re trying to get those (fentanyl) labs,” he said.

Operation Chainbreaker has led HSI to 33 clandestine fentanyl labs in the past year, and El Paso will play a bigger role in its expansion due to its ports of entry.

“If we’re not intercepting (the drugs) at the border, they’re not losing product. They are bringing in the pieces until they have the ability to set up their own manufacturing location in the United States so they don’t have it seized at the border,” Stevens said.

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