Overview
As fentanyl drives record overdose deaths in the United States, there is a clear need for sweeping action to stop illicit fentanyl from crossing our borders. But is the fentanyl crisis driven by the international chemical trade, or by organized cartel violence?
The answer is yes. In practice, the global trade of fentanyl precursor chemicals and the drug trafficking of organized crime function as a single, adaptive supply chain. To effectively combat the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., policymakers and law enforcement must attack this supply chain’s most critical chokepoints.
But how can we map the global trade flows of fentanyl precursors to key ports and facilities? What are the best ways to differentiate legitimate chemical trade activity from illegal trafficking? Where are cartels shipping and manufacturing illicit fentanyl inside Mexico, and where do these drugs enter the U.S.? How can law enforcement find the right chokepoints to target these shipments?
This new NSDPI paper explores these questions by analyzing diverse data to depict the fentanyl supply chain that stretches from overseas chemical suppliers to cartel manufacturing hubs to the U.S.-Mexico border. By integrating criminal conflict data, trade data, infrastructure data, and geospatial analysis, this project identifies Mexican areas that harbor both suspicious trade flows and cartel-linked violence, which suggest a greater risk of illicit drug production. The project also analyzes how the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel manage their drug-related supply chains from end to end.
Key Takeaways
- Trafficking fentanyl is a logistics challenge as much as a law-enforcement evasion challenge.
- Precursor chemicals for fentanyl are mostly imported from China and India through Mexico’s Pacific gateway, with Manzanillo standing out as the dominant port of unlading. Because these ports are critical to the fentanyl supply chain, modest improvements in oversight can yield disproportionate returns.
- Because the key enforcement challenge is chemicals being illegally diverted within legitimate supply chains, this paper identifies a subset of receiving facilities at high risk for illicit activity and suggestions on creating a watchlist methodology to target investigations.
- Law enforcement should target specific trade corridors that the paper maps out using predictive routing models and repeated seizure patterns.