Fentanyl is one click away for millions of US users, including teens.
The US anti-drug agency (DEA) released a report in which it denounced that traffickers are using social networks to promote, sell and distribute this drug as if they were pills of drugs known because they are very accessible applications , where they can operate from anonymity and without anyone controlling them.
Mexico is the main supplier of this drug, the most lethal and lucrative on the market today, which has killed about 100,000 Americans in one year, according to recent data from health authorities in that country.
Anne Milgram, head of the DEA, denounced that Mexican criminal networks are using the perfect tool for drug trafficking: social media applications that are available on every smartphone.
The advantages are many: the applications are easy to use, the traffickers can hide their identity and lie about the products they offer by posing as medicines, “and more importantly, the platforms allow the sale of these fake pills to be done every day without control, Milgram explained Thursday.
According to a recent DEA analysis, more than 680 kilos (1,500 pounds) and more than 8 million pills that mimicked real medicines but were actually fentanyl were seized in operations with other security forces. Just one of those pills can lead to death.
Those operations were directly related to 85 overdoses, 39 of which ended in death. In 76 of those cases the traffickers used social networks such as Snapchat, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and in 32 cases direct links were found with the main Mexican cartels that produce and traffic fentanyl, Milgram said.
The two main criminal organizations that control the drug business in Mexico are the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel.
The company that created Snapchat, a form of messaging that deletes messages shortly after they are sent, said in a statement in October that it wanted to eliminate the sale of illegal drugs on its platform and that it had invested in proactive detection and collaboration with companies. law enforcement. “Facebook has also pledged in the past to increase its controls.
Overdose deaths in the United States linked to fentanyl have been on the rise for more than two decades. Last year they rose nearly 30% in what President Joe Biden called a tragic milestone.
In Mexico, control over the areas where fentanyl is produced and over the transportation routes is generating extremely high levels of violence in places like Michoacán, on the Pacific coast and the main route of entry for chemical precursors from China, or Zacatecas, the epicenter of communications between the producing areas of the Mexican west coast and the border with the United States.
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