DEA: Price hike of meth and heroin during coronavirus
Source: https://foxsanantonio.com/news/yami-investigates/dea-price-hike-of-meth-and-heroin-during-coronavirus
SAN ANTONIO — The ripple effect from coronavirus is being felt everywhere, including drug trafficking. And drug dealers may be taking advantage of COVID-19 and selling illegal drugs at a higher cost. As borders close, the supply and distribution of most drugs is being restricted, forcing drug traffickers to change their business tactics. Like the rest of the world, drug trafficking is certainly not immune to the disruption being caused by COVID-19, but some are seeing this as an opportunity.
"So there's not been let up by the traffickers and also our intelligence does indicate that a lot of the organizations at this time think that law-enforcement is not out there so that they see it as an opportunity to get their narcotics across through the country," said Dante Sorianello, the assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in the San Antonio district.
Just last month, federal officials have seized what is believed to be the longest cross-border tunnel ever discovered. $30 million dollars worth of illegal drugs were seized from a smuggling tunnel from San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico, making it the single largest cocaine seizure through a tunnel along the California-Mexico border.
"That is a common practice in Southern California as well as in Arizona the smuggling of narcotics by the cartels in tunnels," said Sorianello.
Officials found 1,300 pounds of cocaine, 86 pounds of methamphetamine, 17 pounds of heroin, 3,000 pounds of marijuana and more than 2 pounds of fentanyl, according to a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"But we have set task forces that do work on going after those tunnels and the organizations that dig them and utilize them," said Sorianello.
In the last 5 years, the DEA alongside with other federal authorities have uncovered more than 75 cross-border tunnels, most of them in California & Arizona.
"Here in Texas, we really don’t see tunnels because we have the Rio Grande river dividing the border there," said Sorianello.
So finding ways to smuggle drugs like fentanyl and meth from Mexico into the states is becoming difficult, creating a shortage, driving prices higher and higher.
"We have seen an increase in the price of narcotics domestically. Now does that mean there’s a shortage of the narcotics here, that could be an indicator of that. Could it also be price gouging by some of the traffickers? It could be that, also using the virus as an excuse," said Sorianello.