:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/XGTNI5VHPRAX3IGHSGF4OBUO3U.jpg "Sonora boasted that one of its locations is where the most fentanyl is seized in all of Mexico 1")
Before President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) finally recognized that in Mexico fentanyl pills are produced -contrary to what he had said on other occasions-, the state of Sound presumed that one of its localities is Where else is this deadly synthetic opioid being seized? in all the countries.
The federal president’s strategy to combat the trafficking of this drug is to replace fentanyl for medical use with other types of painkillers. But the truth is that the feds have taken it upon themselves to deploy operational -mainly in the north of the Mexican territory- to intercept shipments of said substance who intend to reach the United States.
In this sense, last Wednesday, March 15, the spokesman for the Security Council of the State of Sonora, Juan González Alvarado, announced that in the city of Querobabi – located in the municipality of Opodepe– this is where the authorities succeeded grab as much fentanyl as possible.
“Thanks to the work of the Security Council of the Querobabi military checkpoint, Sonora has become the state with the highest number of fentanyl and weapons seizures in all of Mexico”
Even if did not mention any facts or figures to verify his statements, he indicated that the above is due to the fact that this filter has “the right technology, trained military and canine couples” trained to detect illegal substances that circulate in the entity governed by Alfonso Durazo .
“With these actions, we reduce the capacity of criminal organs and the consumption risks for this dangerous drug,” González Alvardo boasted in a video shared on social media. Although he did not specify which agency is making these seizures, it should be noted that the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena ) is the one that regularly manages to intercept shipments of illegal substances on land.
In the absence of reference data, it is worth returning to the Sedena intelligence reports -filtered by the Guacamaya group- in which it is indicated that the state of Sonora is the one where one of the most recurring drug trafficking routes move the drug. That way, it would explain why more fentanyl was seized from said entity.
According to documents shared by journalist Jesús Alberto Ibarra, in Sonora there are four federal roads and two national roads that are used by criminal groups to transport drugs that are sent to the United States:
-Federal Highway 15-D Hermosillo – Nogales
-Federal Highway 2-D Agua Prieta – Mexicali
-Federal Highway 8 Puerto Peñasco – Sonoyta
-Federal Highway 7 Hermosillo – Agua Prieta
-National Highway No. 3 Miguel Aleman – Puerto Libertad
-National Highway No. 37 Puerto Peñasco – San Luis Río Colorado
Thus, drug cartels move drugs through these routes to send them to two main destinations: Nogales and Tijuanaboth located in the state of Baja California, which, like Sonora, borders the United States.
In mid-January, Sedena elements intercepted a truck that appeared to be carrying fruit and found over half a ton of methamphetamine and 714 thousand 975 fentanyl pills. The actions were carried out at the military post of Querobabi and it was indicated that the unit came from Tecoman, in Colima and intended to reach Rosarito, Baja California.
However, it should be noted that the largest fentanyl seizures have enrolled in culiacan, Sinaloa, one of the strongest strongholds of the Pacific Cartel. On July 2, 2022, Mexican army and national guard personnel found more than 540 kilos of this opioid, after searching a property located in the Las Palmas district.
This is one of the AMLO government’s largest fentanyl seizures, as it was a assignment of 4 thousand 642 million pesos (nearly 224.2 million USD) in losses to organized crime.
Despite this, President López Obrador affirmed during his morning conference on Thursday March 16 that “All the (fentanyl pills) we seize here are blue. And there (in the United States) there is red, yellow, all colors and all flavors. It is a massive distribution,” he warned.
In the current administration (December 2018 to date), the seizure of this drug has increased by more than 1000% over previous six-year terms. In total, they got six thousand 273 kilograms of fentanyl throughout the national territory, announced the head of the Sedena, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, in mid-January of this year.