The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to flood the streets of New Mexico between 2023 and 2025, even as the state grappled with the deadliest drug epidemic in American history.
This controversial tactic, revealed by three current and former DEA agents and government records reviewed by The Associated Press, involved agents monitoring but deliberately not seizing fentanyl shipments, a strategy purportedly aimed at building larger criminal cases against traffickers of the synthetic opioid.
