U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Ranking Member Marco Rubio (R-FL) questioned State Department official on the partnership with Mexico to stop the influx of synthetic drugs coming across the U.S. border.
Click here for video and read a transcript below:
Witness:
- Chris Landberg, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State
RUBIO: I think the synthetic drugs pose a very different challenge than the drugs that require agriculture, such as coca. For these synthetic drugs, the key is these precursor chemicals, the raw materials that you put together to make these synthetic drugs. I understand the chain the way it works. There are multiple places that produce the precursors right now. The bulk of it is coming from two provinces in China and a handful of companies.
These things can be bought online, on the darknet internet, and they are then shipped in cargo containers that are mislabeled with the help of certain brokers who will bribe officials and or help file fictitious paperwork, and are brought into Mexico. These precursors are then distributed to these small-scale labs that manufacture the stuff, and they also need the equipment, the pill presses and so forth. Then, they sell their manufactured product to transport specialists. The two big ones that are in the business are the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels in Mexico. For a premium fee, they move the drugs across the border and into the hands of distribution networks inside of the United States. Is that an accurate description of the supply chain?
LANDBERG: Yes, sir. The majority of the precursors are coming from the People’s Republic of China [PRC], and they are trafficked into Mexico in various ways. You are right. It is a diffuse command and control structure in how it’s produced, and then the major cartels move it back into the U.S.
RUBIO: Coca is grown agriculturally, and then these labs out in the jungle put it together, and the cartels move it and so forth. They had vertically integrated in Colombia for a while. The difference here is, while I agree 100 percent that we need to do a better job of monitoring and stopping it at the border, attacking it at the street level, diminishing the demand in our own country and so forth, it seems to me that part of the key is disrupting the influx of both the precursor chemicals and, to some extent, the technologies, the pill presses and other equipment that they are using to bring this stuff together.
I don’t know how we do that without the cooperation of the Mexican government, who has to be willing, at their ports of entry, particularly as these cargo ships come in, to use a variety of methods to stop these precursors from coming in. These precursors have legitimate uses. They exist for other reasons. But obviously, when they’re being shipped for a certain purpose in certain quantities into Mexico, there’s real suspicion. We don’t want to divulge tactics. But is there a strategy being thought of? Who is in charge of developing it?
Maybe why the Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] should be here today. Is there a strategy that theoretically could work at disrupting the influx of these precursor chemicals that are necessary to cook this stuff up? And the equipment, I would add. Who’s in charge of that? Who’s doing the thinking about what creative ways we can use to crack down on that end of the supply chain?
LANDBERG: Sir, this is our top priority from a security perspective in the whole region. The White House is directly involved, from the president on down. We’re working on this all the time. When you talk about border security, port security, you’re looking at the Department of Homeland Security [DHS].
RUBIO: I’m talking about Mexican ports.
LANDBERG: With the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs…
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