Flow of Fentanyl Down After ‘Titanic Effort’ by Mexico, Say Experts

The flow of fentanyl from Mexico to the United States has dropped since U.S. President Donald Trump took office earlier this year and threatened Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum with tariffs unless she squeezed the cartels, according to analysts.

On July 31, after a “very successful” call with Sheinbaum, Trump said he was giving Mexico a 90-day extension before imposing a 30 percent tariff on imports.

On Aug. 12, the Mexican government extradited 26 alleged cartel bosses, including Leobardo Garcia Corrales of the Sinaloa cartel, who the U.S. Department of Justice said had trafficked large quantities of fentanyl into the United States.

Ilan Katz, a criminal defense attorney in Mexico who also represents banks and other financial institutions, told The Epoch Times, “Seizures are up in Mexico, and seizures are down in the [United] States.”

Cartels Being ‘Squeezed’

Katz said Mexico’s drug cartels will never be eliminated forever but that they are definitely being “squeezed” by Sheinbaum’s government and the head of Mexico’s secretariat of security and citizen protection, Omar García Harfuch.

“We have seen a titanic effort by the Mexican government to detain major cartel operatives, and we see one at least once a day,” Katz said. “Every day, you see there is something in the news.”

Soon after Trump returned to the White House in January, he asked Sheinbaum to reduce illegal immigration across the U.S. southern border and curb Mexico’s trade links with China.

But the priority was tackling the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection published figures showing that 9,220 pounds of fentanyl were seized between October 2024 and July 15, 2025, compared with 21,889 pounds seized between October 2023 and September 2024.

On July 16, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published figures showing that the provisional number of drug overdose deaths, which would include fentanyl, fell from a high of 111,451 for the 12-month period ending in August 2023, to 76,298 for the 12-month period ending in February 2025.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Feb. 4, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that each day, approximately 150 Americans die from fentanyl poisoning.

Speaking at that same hearing, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said, “The Biden administration’s open border was an invitation to drug cartels smuggling Chinese fentanyl into the United States, fueling the U.S. overdose epidemic.”

Katz said Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, was “soft” on the cartels.

“He had a policy named ‘hugs, not bullets,’ and it was obviously a faulty political agenda,” Katz said, adding that although there were claims Obrador had been funded and supported by drug cartels, “there’s no evidence.”

In September 2024, Obrador blamed the United States for an upsurge in violence in Mexico, after Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia—one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel—was lured to El Paso, Texas, and arrested in July of that year.

But Sheinbaum is “squeaky clean,” Katz said.

“She is the least corrupt Mexican politician in my lifetime,” Katz said. “She is absolutely not motivated by personal wealth. She’s a technocrat. Her lifestyle has been very, very simple.”

Mexican Police Chief ‘Very Tough’

Katz said of Harfuch: “He has been the most effective force against cartels in many, many decades. He’s a life-long policeman. … He’s very young, he’s very popular, he’s very tough.”

In June 2020, Harfuch, who was 38 at the time, survived an assassination attempt, in which two of his bodyguards were killed, and within hours, responded on X, blaming what he called the “cowardly” Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

Regarding China’s role in the fentanyl trade, as Trump signed the HALT Fentanyl Act, he said China would honor a deal he made with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during his first term and sentence people to death for fentanyl manufacturing and distribution.

“China is the producer of 90 percent of the precursors for fentanyl,” Katz said, adding that although the chemical companies were not created to commit crimes, “when the opioid crisis in the [United] States went out of hand, they found this huge niche market for the production of fentanyl, especially in Mexico.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration filed intelligence reports in 2020 that showed important precursors—such as 4-anilino-N-phenethyl-4-piperidine and N-phenethyl-4-piperidinone—flowing to Mexico and Canada from China and India.

One U.S. analyst and specialist in gray finance, who requested anonymity for personal reasons, told The Epoch Times: “Because fentanyl is such a potent drug, they’re not buying tons of it. A few barrel loads would be enough to supply an entire urban market for a year. Like two salt grains of the stuff will kill most people.”

Beijing Can’t Control Criminals

The analyst said that China’s organized criminal networks, sometimes known as Triads, operate independently of the interests of the Chinese regime and often contradict them.

“They’ll wear whatever skin is necessary,” he said, adding that Chinese gangsters sometimes used Chinese Communist Party slogans to attract Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investment, “knowing full well that the people controlling the levers of BRI investment are as corrupt as they are.”

“This is a much more systemic issue than merely what the Chinese or Mexican government can do about it. We’re looking at a broad shadow illicit liquidity network that functions independently of state interests.”

On June 25, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network sanctioned three Mexican banks—CIBanco, Intercam, and Vector—as “being of primary money laundering concern in connection with illicit opioid trafficking.”

The principal shareholder in Vector, a brokerage company managing almost $11 billion in assets, was Alfonso Romo, a Monterey businessman who was chief of staff to Obrador between 2018 and 2020.

The 90-day extension is due to run out on Oct. 29, but Katz believes Sheinbaum will do what is necessary to retain the U.S.–Mexico commercial partnership, which he described as the “most important trading partnership in the history of Earth.”

“We have 120 million people, and we have a 3,000-kilometer border with the United States,” he said, “so for us, it’s not about choosing between China and the United States. That’s not even a choice.”

On Feb. 28, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Mexico had made a “very interesting” proposal to match U.S. tariffs on China.

“[Sheinbaum] knows how to manage men of power well,” Katz said, “and I think that her point to the Trump administration is a little bit ‘help me, help you,’ and that goes a long way.”

He said she was effectively saying to Trump: “I’ll do what you need, but don’t punish me. It makes no sense to be punished for helping you.”