Drug trafficking

DEA Lays Out New Dynamic for Regional Heroin Trafficking

A top DEA official has sounded the alarm over how heroin traffickers in Mexico have massively increased poppy cultivation and expanded their distribution networks into the east coast of the United States as they look to cash in on the growing number of US heroin users.

In Congressional testimony (pdf) on October 8 regarding drug abuse, Acting Deputy Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Jack Riley said the DEA had documented a 50 percent increase in the cultivation of poppy (the plant used to make heroin) in Mexico, primarily in the state of Guerrero and the Mexican "Golden Triangle" of Durango, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua.