Drug trafficking

Mexican cartels making incursions into East Coast heroin markets, DEA official says

One of the Drug Enforcement Administration's top officials issued a call to arms late last week during testimony to Congress over the increase in poppy production in Mexico and the expansion of the heroin trade in the United States.

The DEA's acting deputy administrator Jack Riley told Congress that the agency has documented a 50 percent increase in production of poppies – the plant from which heroin is derived from – in Mexico's so-called "Golden Triangle" – the states of Durango, Sinaloa and Chihuahua – as well as the state of Guerrero.

The heroin trade has traditionally been divided along the Mississippi River with Mexican "black tar" heroin dominating western markets and Colombia's white-powder heroin controlling those in the east.