DEA Responding to Counterfeit Pill Problem Fueled by Cartels

At the Rx Summit on Wednesday, officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) outlined the fentanyl crisis plaguing the United States, and explained how the organizations fueling it are strengthening their operations—and how DEA is responding.

Administrator Anne Milgram said during an evening plenary session that the Sinaloa and Jalisco criminal cartels, which are based in Mexico and operate in 50 countries, are responsible for fentanyl found in every state in the US.

The synthetic opioid is highly profitable for the criminal organizations because potentially lethal doses can be pressed into counterfeit prescription pills in massive quantities with relatively low overhead costs. Counterfeit versions of Oxycontin, Adderall, and Xanax are the most commonly produced fake pills, Jae Chung, DEA deputy chief of operations, said in a separate session earlier Wednesday.

The pills produced by the cartels are visually indistinguishable from their legitimate counterparts, even for trained chemists, Milgram said. A small pill press used by the cartel can produce thousands of pills in an hour. A large press can produce more than a million.

It is not only production of fentanyl that has been streamlined, however. Milgram said cartels have solved what she described as their “last mile problem,” i.e., getting their products into the hands of buyers.

“There is no more dangerous place than social media when it comes to our current drug threat,” Milgram said.

Social media platforms have provided an avenue for counterfeit pills to be “delivered to your house in the same amount of time as it takes to have a pizza delivered,” she said.

“People no longer have to walk to their street corner to buy drugs. You can buy [through a] phone and within a few clicks have what you believe is a real prescription pill but is not,” Milgram said.

Drug poisoning is now the No. 1 cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

The DEA is responding by developing a coordinated response across its 334 offices around the globe, Milgram said. The administration has created counter-threat teams targeting each of the cartels.

From May to September 2022, the DEA and its partner organizations seized more than 10.2 million pills containing fentanyl. Overall, the administration investigated 390 cases during the 5-month period, with 35 investigations have direct links to the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels.

References

Milgram A. Plenary. Presented at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit; April 10-13, 2023; Atlanta, Georgia.

Chung J. Fake pills: what every American should know. Presented at the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit; April 10-13, 2023; Atlanta, Georgia.