- Drug cartels are moving more of their drug manufacturing operations onto U.S. soil, former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Special Operations Division Derek Maltz told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
- The cartels are bringing into the U.S. both the powder and liquid forms of drugs to be pressed into counterfeit pills, according to Maltz, rather than bringing already-made pills across the southern border from Mexico, which is how they’ve traditionally operated. Liquid forms of drugs can be made into powder in what are known as conversion labs.
- Drugs killed over 100,000 Americans in 2021, with fentanyl from Mexico and the cartels a chief contributor.
