The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, have announced the creation of a high-level Trilateral Committee on fentanyl to coordinate their actions against the distribution and consumption of this drug in North America, which they consider to be a »major threat».
The three countries will focus their efforts on drug demand and public health, modes and methods of drug trafficking, illicit finance, and current and emerging synthetic drugs, according to a statement. In addition, they will work to hinder the «global transfer, facilitation and supply of illicit fentanyl, precursor chemicals, and the equipment used in their illicit production (such as pill-making machines),» and have pledged to assist other countries affected by such synthetic drugs, which also include methamphetamine, captagon and tramadol.
The three governments will meet again next June at a trilateral public health forum.
Fentanyl is an extremely addictive opiate family drug, which has led to a growing wave of overdose deaths on U.S. soil in recent years.
OPERATIONS AGAINST FENTANYL IN THE U.S. U.S. authorities have assured that all the fentanyl in the country comes from Mexico and mostly by the Sinaloa Cartel, to which the U.S. Justice Department has dealt a blow this Friday by charging four sons of the »narco of narcos» Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera, as well as against 24 other members of the Sinaloa Cartel he led, in the framework of a macro judicial operation, developed in a dozen countries, against fentanyl trafficking and that reaches Chinese companies that supply chemical materials.
The United States has announced a series of actions against those involved in the illicit trafficking of fentanyl.(…) In addition, the Department of Justice announced significant indictments against fentanyl traffickers associated with the Sinaloa Cartel. The Treasury Department sanctioned five individuals and two entities involved in trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals from the People’s Republic of China,» U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Also this Friday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that in the first month of Operation Blue Lotus against drug trafficking, they have seized more than 4,000 pounds (about 1,800 kilograms) of fentanyl at the country’s borders, which is transported in cars and trucks in 90 percent of the cases.
The operation has arrested 156 people and seized large quantities of other drugs such as methamphetamine (about 1,500 kilograms) and cocaine (about 450 kilograms).
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
