China Commission Says Fentanyl Smuggling Shifts to Mexico After China Crackdown
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission published a brief on fentanyl smuggling, noting that the mail and express shipping routes that had been common sources of the opiate have declined as smuggling across the Mexican border has increased. The commission said that while most fentanyl and precursor chemicals to make fentanyl are still coming from China, the manufacturing is happening more often in India and Mexico since China agreed to make fentanyl a more tightly regulated product back in 2019. "China’s weak supervision and regulation of its chemical and pharmaceutical industry also enable evasion and circumvention," the brief said.
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Still, the amount of fentanyl seized in mail and express shipments from China to the U.S. declined from 278 pounds in 2018 to 11 pounds in 2019, after China's crackdown.
The brief quoted Thomas Overacker, executive director of the CBP Office of Field Operations, “Most of the illicit fentanyl entering our country by weight does so at ports of entry (POEs) along our southwest border by private vehicles, pedestrian, and commercial vehicles.” In 2019, CBP seized more than 2,660 pounds of illicit fentanyl from Mexico, compared with 1,500 pounds in 2018. The report also said that its seizures of fentanyl at labs and at ports of exit sextupled in 2020.