Mexican drug cartels are flooding the border with fentanyl at never-before-seen rates, with a record number of pounds seized at the nation's borders in April.
Federal law enforcement who inspect vehicles, people, and goods at the border are seizing an astronomical amount of fentanyl, surpassing last year's record-setting number in just the first seven months of the government's 2023 year.
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Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed that its agents and officers intercepted 3,257 pounds of the deadly opioid in April alone.
Since the start of the government's fiscal 2023 last October, CBP has prevented 17,200 pounds of fentanyl from seeping into the interior of the United States — more than the previous year's 14,700 pounds.
The 2022 total seizures had set a record high compared to 11,200 pounds seized in 2021 and 4,900 pounds seized in 2020.
The Drug Enforcement Administration has stated that 2 milligrams of the typical fentanyl it seizes is a potentially fatal dose. One pound of fentanyl would be equivalent to 453,952 lethal doses.
CBP's seizure of 3,257 pounds of fentanyl nationwide last month means nearly 1.5 billion doses were stopped.
Fentanyl is a man-made drug that is so strong that three grains of the powder can induce a coma. U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 45 years old were more likely to die from consuming fentanyl than they were to die as the result of a car crash, the coronavirus, a heart attack, suicide, or a terrorist attack in 2021, the U.S. government declared. Fentanyl overdoses were a driving force behind the record-high 100,000 overdose deaths last year.
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Seizures at the border have ballooned from 2 pounds in 2013 as the opioid epidemic evolved to prescription drugs from heroin.
The massive increase in fentanyl seizures over the past decade indicates that federal police are growing more successful at detecting the deadly drug from vehicles and on pedestrians coming through ports of entry. It also speaks to the growing rate at which Mexican cartels are pushing fentanyl across the border.