Trump confronts repeated boos during raucous Libertarian convention speech
Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing Saturday night’s Libertarian Party National Convention.
The head of Mexico's detective service acknowledged Tuesday that the country is "the champion" of fentanyl production, contradicting President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Lopez Obrador hotly denies that any fentanyl is produced in Mexico, saying Mexican cartels only press it into pills or add finishing touches.
But Felipe de Jesus Gallo, the head of Mexico's Criminal Investigation Agency, said that since the 1990s "Mexico has been the champion of methamphetamine production, and now fentanyl." He spoke at a U.S.-Mexico conference on synthetic drugs in Mexico City.
Experts agree that cartels in Mexico use precursor chemicals from China and India to make the synthetic opioid and smuggle it into the United States, where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually.
While fentanyl is not widely abused in Mexico, methamphetamine addiction is commonplace.
Gallo said that Mexican cartels have launched industrial-scale production of meth in many states throughout the country and now export the drug around the world.
"Believe me, methamphetamine production has become industrialized, it's not just in the mountains anymore," Gallo said. "We now expect to see (drug) laboratories not just in the mountains of Sinaloa and Sonora, but in Hidalgo as well, Puebla, and also in Jalisco."
He was apparently referring to thousands of drug labs detected in previous years in the hills and scrublands around Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa. Those clandestine, rural production sites were often bare-bones, improvised labs covered with tree branches and tarpaulins.
Police and military patrol Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, Jan. 6, 2023, the day after the government detained Ovidio Guzman, the son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman (Martin Urista /AP Photo / File)
Now, the meth trade has become so lucrative and so sophisticated that Mexican meth is exported as far away as Hong Kong or Australia, and the cartels have found ways to avoid detection of their drug money.
"The business models have become very innovative, or as old and antiquated as barter; `I'll trade you precursor chemicals for meth,' to avoid leaving a money trail," Gallo said.
There is little question that drug production goes on at a huge scale in Mexico.
In February, Mexico's Navy seized over 45 tons of methamphetamine at the biggest drug lab found during the current administration. The lab was in Quiriego, a township in a remote part of the northern border state of Sonora.
The 91,000 pounds (41,310 kilograms) of meth found there was more than half of the 162,000 pounds of the drug Mexico has seized so far this year.
Fentanyl production is also huge, though because it is a more potent drug, the volume is smaller.
A year ago, soldiers seized more than a half-million fentanyl pills in Culiacan in what the army at the time described as the largest synthetic drug lab found to date.
Soldiers found almost 630,000 pills that appeared to contain fentanyl, the army said. They also reported seizing 282 pounds (128 kilograms) of powdered fentanyl and about 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of suspected methamphetamine.
Lopez Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1 2018, also claims that Mexicans are culturally immune to drug addiction.
Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing Saturday night’s Libertarian Party National Convention.
According to some experts, there is one type of screen time that is continuously excessive, and it's having a severe effect on our children.
A year has passed since two-year-old Vienna Irwin was found on the property of a home-based daycare in small-town Ontario, but her family says they are no closer to answers of what happened that day.
Two-time PGA Tour winner Grayson Murray died Saturday morning at age 30, one day after he withdrew from the Charles Schwab Cup Challenge at Colonial.
The family of one of the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018 says they are 'thankful' for a decision by a Calgary immigration board to deport the driver of the truck involved.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has confirmed it is working with local Mounties and the BC Coroners Service after a plane crash near Squamish, B.C. Friday night.
An emotional outburst in a London, Ont. courtroom Friday disrupted the sentencing hearing of a woman who pleaded guilty for her part in the death of 29-year-old Mohammed Abdallah.
Three people have died after a vehicle veered off the road in Shediac N.B., Friday morning.
An Edmonton woman found guilty of trying to kill her three children has been denied an appeal.
When one is extended an invitation to the Royal Garden Party in London, England, there's undoubtedly no shortage of pomp and circumstance. Barrie, Ont. natives Megan Kirk Chang and her husband Brandon experienced just that as they entered the prestigious event hosted at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.
An unlikely celebrity emerged from social media to cheer on the Edmonton Oilers as they face the Dallas Stars tonight in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.
The proprietors of Regina's sole discount theatre are aware they're carrying on a significant legacy.
When Jujhar Mann said he wanted to be a pastry chef on a grade school career project, he didn't imagine that pursuing his dream would land him on a popular Netflix baking competition.
A city known for its history, ties to outer space and southern barbecue, is also home to a Winnipeg chef dishing out dozens of perogies.
A Montreal photographer captured the moment a Canada goose defended itself from a fox at the Botanical Garden.
Public libraries in Atlantic Canada are now lending a broader range of items.
Flashes of purple darting across the sky mixed with the serenading sound of songs will be noticed more with spring in full force in Manitoba.
Catching 'em all with impressive speed, a 7-year-old boy from Windsor, Ont. who only started his competitive Pokémon journey seven months ago has already levelled up to compete at a world championship level.