The Mexican army has seized more than a half million fentanyl pills in a raid on what government officials calls the largest synthetic drug lab found to date.
Mexican officials said Wednesday the lab was discovered in Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa, home to the drug cartel of the same name. Soldiers raided the lab Tuesday and found almost 630,000 pills that appear to contain the synthetic opioid fentanyl. They also seized nearly 300 pounds of powdered fentanyl.
Mexican drug cartels produce the potentially deadly opioid from precursor chemicals shipped from China and then press it into pills counterfeited to look like Xanax, Percocet or Oxycodone. Opiate addiction and overprescribing in the U.S. create a high demand for international supply.
On Thursday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy toured the U.S.-Mexico border with a delegation of Republican freshmen. He demanded better border security from the Biden administration for an area McCarthy called Mexico’s biggest cartel employer.