“Love with love pays off”: the fentanyl trafficking and Mexico’s debt to China

Part 2

It was the last day of the year 2020. Given the increasing increase in U.S. deaths from fentanyl use that Mexican drug cartels are trafficking from the common border, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has acknowledged that In the Aztec country, there is also a crisis due to this opioid which comes from China.

It looked like one of the traditional morning conferences that the Mexican president conducts every day, but that on December 31 Defense Minister Luis Crescencio Sandoval admits demand for opioids “increases”.

But he also admitted that “all the raw material used to manufacture these drugs arrives through the ports, through Mexican customs.”

The Fentanyl arrives at the Mexican ports of Manzanillo, Colima and Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, China, And if in 2020 compared to 2019, the seizure of this drug in Mexico increased by almost 500%, organized crime has already found a way to bypass surveillance at Aztec customs thanks to the development of different types of labels that facilitate its international shipment, according to a survey by the organization Insight Crime.

Gerardo Rodríguez Sánchez Lara, coordinator of the Department of International Relations and Political Sciences of the University of the Americas in Puebla (UDLSP), one of the main private institutions in the country, said that in the face of this crisis which, since 2017, has been lighting red lights in United States, China should ensure that shipments leaving its territory avoid trafficking in precursor chemicals.

He felt that this is a scenario in which the Aztec government must find a way to establish a dialogue with China to seek greater controls, “it seems difficult because China does not know whether or not it wants to cooperate in this regard because it ultimately sees it as an agenda that the United States imposes. in Mexico, but China is the big player ”.

However, at this time “it is difficult for mexico to pressure china because he will not want to adopt measures in terms of security in the supply chain because he sees pressure from the United States, ”said the academic to Infobae Mexico.

The fight against this illicit substance focuses on the Sinaloa cartels, founded by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, and the New Generation Jalisco (CJNG)But there are already smaller organizations that are also fighting for their share of the fentanyl market and may not yet be on the authorities’ radar.

Criminal groups seeking to consolidate in the illicit fentanyl market have found a way to enter Mexico in the form of powder, blotting paper drops, eye drop containers or pills. To multiply its effect, before trafficking it to the United States, they often mix it with cocaine, heroin, MDMA and methamphetamine.

“In China, they label them as if they were other things and neither in Mexico nor in China have the time to research corresponding to know what kind of material it is, ”Mike Vigil, one of America’s top drug traffickers, told Infobae Mexico.

Mexico closer to China

Another health crisis, that of Covid-19 was the reason Why Mexico has created a link with China And it’s the fact that CanSino Biologicals has not only performed thousands of tests on volunteers in phase 3 of your vaccine against the virus in Aztec land, but also the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac will provide the country with more than 10 million doses to advance the vaccination of the elderly.

Just last saturday The first 200,000 doses of the Sinovac CoronaVac vaccine have arrived in the country while that of CanSino represents one of the main bets of the López Obrador administration because only one request would be needed to immunize a person.

The country authorized the application of CoronaVac despite the doubts that its effectiveness has engendered Before confusing the results after the tests he conducted in Indonesia and Turkey, since if the first attributed an efficiency of 65%, the second ensured that it was 91.2%.

So far, Mexico is the only country that has two Chinese vaccines, which analysts say is a sufficient guarantee that at present The AMLO government does not enter into any type of conflict with Beijing.

“Mexico is in a complicated situation because the CanSino vaccine is one of the best options to complete the vaccination. Love with love is paid for and Mexico is indebted to China on this issue, ”warned Sánchez Lara.

Reform in the ports

The report of the Minister of Defense published on December 31, 2020 indicated that that year An estimated 1.3 tonnes of fentanyl was seized, up from 222 kilograms in 2019. The seizure numbers can be an indicator of the extent to which importation has also increased, which in some cases can legally occur by pharmaceutical companies using the active ingredient as an input to manufacture drugs.

In the final section of last year, Mexico began a transition in which control of the port system will shift from the Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) to the Ministry of the Marine (Semar). With these reforms The Navy will assume the total management of concessions, contracts, works, permits, fees and naval education.

The reform of the organic law of the federal public administration, the law on navigation and maritime commerce and the law on ports establishes that the navy will have the power to “issue permits for the establishment and operation services related to communications and water transport with ships or naval devices; award and grant contracts, concessions and permits for the establishment and operation of services related to water communications ”.

It is expected that the militarization of control in the seas and at the country’s entry ports will help reduce the flow of precursor chemicals used to produce synthetic drugs, but this intention has sparked controversy in the chambers of deputies and senators, which demand the large number of tasks that the executive delegates to the military.

With little hope that the Mexican executive will take action on the matter, experts wonder if it is not time for the legislature to take serious action in creating comprehensive legislation that fully addresses this problem. which generates a very serious health crisis and which causes tens of thousands of deaths which could be avoided by stopping this illegal activity.

In the fentanyl crisis, the United States knows that the overdose death rate in its territory fell between 2007 and 2017 from 36,010 to 70,237 but in Mexico, drug overdose deaths are rarely recorded correctly, which may not not give the adequate dimension of the problem in Aztec. Earth. (Tomorrow part three)

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