In the alarming world of fentanyl trafficking, even the term for who hides it in their bodies – “smuggling,” bringing it across the border in an attempt to evade authorities – is disturbing.

For years, those who dared to take this illegal step were called “mules” of the drug trade. Now it is known that these people, usually women, are called ‘bearers of corpses’. Really, disturbing.

But you can’t cover reality with a finger. It is mortal. The powerful opioid, EFE recalls, “is responsible for more than 100,000 deaths annually in the United States.”

Fentanyl, 50 times more powerful than heroin, is causing ‘the worst drug crisis in American history’.

In that country, on Monday, December 4, 2023, the creation of a “strike force” against fentanyl trafficking in the country was announced, which will mobilize resources from the Ministry of Finance and will be led by the Criminal Investigation Division and by the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI).

Fentanyl traffickers

A recent journalistic investigation conducted by Ioan Grillo reveals “one of the methods by which women transport and traffic fentanyl into the United States.”

They point out that organized crime groups contact these women, as usually happens, “through social networks.”

It is the border agents who identify them as “carriers of corpses”, reports the Mexican media Tribuna.

The crude investigation shows that agents observed several North American women carrying drugs — including fentanyl — in their genitals to conduct this type of smuggling across the Mexico-United States border.

Most of the chemical precursors for fentanyl come from China and are synthesized in Mexico. The fentanyl is then smuggled across the border into the US.

Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary

At these border crossings they also catch men with fentanyl that they carry hidden in ‘boots and bags’.

In 2022, officers recalled, they found a 19-year-old girl, two months pregnant, who had 118 grams of the opioid in her genitals, Infobae reported, citing a report published on the platform on December 5. crashoutmedia.

Is this practice fatal?

Highlights Stand that fentanyl puts the lives of the “mule” or “body carriers” in greater danger because a small amount of the drug leaking from the containers can be fatal.

It was learned from Puerto Rico early this week that three men were arrested on the island for distributing fentanyl and cocaine and for firearms-related crimes, the federal prosecutor’s office said.

According to EFE, the prisoners face a total of eighteen charges.

According to the indictment, “as of an unknown date and at least since last August, they conspired to distribute fentanyl and cocaine and used machine guns to promote drug trafficking crimes and to traffic unlicensed firearms.”

And in Mexico, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (FGR) reported on Tuesday 6 this month that around 129,000 pills and 150 kilos of fentanyl had been seized in the state of Chihuahua, in the north of Mexico.

In a statement quoted by the Spanish agency, the FGR said that the discovery of the pills, the alleged fentanyl, as well as several substances, took place during a search in the municipality of Guadalupe y Calvo, in the aforementioned border state. with the United States. (JO)