“Ground zero” of the powerful drug that causes thousands of deaths in Mexico and the United States

Fentanyl is a deadly synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin.

So many people in the United States have recently died from taking the drug that authorities in that country approved the over-the-counter sale of naloxone, a drug that reverses overdose.

But the trail of destruction left by fentanyl doesn’t begin in the US, but further south, in Manzanillo, Mexico.

This beautiful seaside resort on the Mexican Pacific coast became world famous in the 1970s, when Bo Derek ran along the sandy beaches in the Hollywood movie “10” (1979).

But today he lives in the shadow of the cartels’ violence.

Manzanillo has the largest port in Mexico and the third busiest in Latin America, with nearly 3.5 million containers arriving from around the world last year.

All kinds of cargo pass through the docks, including chemicals that come mainly from China and India and are used to generate organized crime’s most lucrative revenue: synthetic drugs like fentanyl.

The port has therefore become the starting point for a large number blood crimes and conflicts that multiply in the state of Colima, in Mexico.

endemic corruption

In 2022, this small state had the highest murder rate per capita in Mexico as the scene of the battle between the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels for control of the area.

“We recently seized propionyl chloride, which is used in the synthesis of fentanyl. That is one of the many chemicals we see entering Manzanillo,” said the naval commander in charge of port security, who must remain anonymous for security reasons.

To try the endemic corruption To facilitate organized crime in the country, the Mexican government put the navy in charge of all seaports in 2021.

Now all workers in the port of Manzanillo and the companies that sell chemical products are monitored through a sophisticated monitoring system.

There is a obstacle: Some ingredients are legitimately used in the production of agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals.

This means there are strict checks on paperwork and shipments of chemicals are tested by naval personnel to ensure they meet requirements.

There is also a sniffer dog, a Belgian Shepherd that was a gift from the US Embassy, ​​who has been trained to find fentanyl pills or powder.

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently made headlines after stating that Mexico does not produce or consume fentanyl.

But makeshift “labs” have been discovered and dismantled in Mexico City and in the northern states of Nuevo León and Sinaloa.

Fentanyl “ground zero”

In the state of Baja California, police raided two Tijuana properties last year, where they found large quantities of fentanyl pills and powder, using hydraulic presses to produce tablets.

Tijuana is a city with a lot of violence near the border with the United States.

It has become “ground zero” for fentanyl, a major hub for trafficking the drug to California, in the US, and for local use.

“kills everyoneto all my friends,” says Smiley, a fentanyl addict living on the city streets.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people live out in the open around the Tijuana River Canal, a concrete structure that runs through the heart of the city.

Many are addicted to drugs and many who overdose do not always know they have taken fentanyl.

revived with naloxone

Because of how potent it is, a small dose of fentanyl it can cause death. And other drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine are being cut on both sides of the US-Mexico border.

Smiley estimates he has overdosed more than 20 people, but revived them all with naloxone, a medicated nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose.

Naloxone is now widely available in the US, but in Mexico still needs a prescription to acquire it: Smiley gets his supply from a local charity.

Not only the homeless are affected.

In 2022, the Mexican Red Cross received an average 60 calls per month overdose in Tijuana. The victims were all kinds of people.

There have been multiple cases of overdoses, but it is not known exactly how many fentanyl-related deaths have occurred since those statistics are not collected in Mexico.

The battle for Tijuana

Meanwhile, the cartels fight for control of the streets of Tijuana.

The situation is so extreme that every block or street it may be run by another criminal group.

The competition to control drug sales is violent and bloody. In January alone, there were 156 homicides in Tijuana, a city of just over two million people.

fentanyl contributes to insecurity, and the profits from selling it are huge. It is estimated that this synthetic opioid can be manufactured for one-hundredth of what it costs to produce heroin.

The cartels no longer need to control rural communities in Mexico or land to grow poppies; they just need to secure access to chemicals and hire someone with the know-how to make fentanyl.

And because it is so strong, it is a narcotic that is profitable in small quantities, even more so when smuggled into the US, where the price can be up to 10 times higher.

From Tijuana to the USA

April Spring Kelly is currently serving a lengthy sentence after almost admitting to human trafficking half a million pills of fentanyl and other drugs from Tijuana to the US in 2018.

“I’d put on a belt that slims you down and goes under your clothes, and I’d put[the fentanyl pills]in there,” April Spring Kelly tells the BBC from a US federal prison.

Other times he trafficked the drug by car.

Like many Americans, the young woman had become addicted to opioid painkillersbut then turned to heroin produced by the Mexican cartels as prescription drugs became more difficult to obtain.

To fund his addiction, he rented an apartment in Tijuana and began trafficking fentanyl pills for organized crime across the border to San Diego.

Last year, 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses related to a synthetic opioid like fentanyl.

April Spring Kelly lives with immense regret: One of the fentanyl pills she traded ended up causing the death of a baby.

“It’s terrible. And I hate being part of it,” he confesses.

More than half of the U.S. fentanyl is seized on the California-Mexico border.

April Spring Kelly was Captured at the port of entry in San Ysidrowhere up to 120,000 people cross in one day.

Once you cross the Tijuana border at San Ysidro, a 40 minute trolley ride will take you to downtown San Diego.

In 2021, 814 people died of a fentanyl-related cause in the city county, or more than 15 fatal overdoses per week in a population of just over three million people.

“So many people have died in the last two years that we couldn’t keep track of them if we autopsied them all,” explained the district’s lead investigator, Steven Campman.

“If we performed autopsies on everyone who overdosed, we would have to hire four new pathologists,” he adds.

unprecedented consequences

The consequences of fentanyl are not only incalculable for the next of kin, but also for health care workers and police officers.

“I worked for four years [analizando el origen de]486 deadsaid Ed Byrne, a special agent for investigations at the US Department of Homeland Security.

“There are a lot of scenes you go into, there are a lot of bodies.”

From 2018 to last year, Ed Byrne collected evidence from places where people died from overdoses to try and identify the drug dealers who supplied the drug.

“You can go from a tent housed by a homeless person to $10 million houses,” he says.

and some of them scenes of death have stayed with him. “They’re like frozen in time, they’re like paintings in your head.”

There are too many pictures of lost lives.

And as Mexican cartels continue to produce and export fentanyl, there is no end to the tragedy that continues to unfold in Mexico and the United States.