Drug smuggling

Heroin in Soups and Lollipops: How Drug Cartels Evade Border Security

Instead of smuggling heroin through ports of entry or across the border, the cartel’s traffickers exploited weaknesses in border security: parcels shipped through the mail, UPS and FedEx; air cargo; and travel on transit systems with relatively little security, like Amtrak. Their packages were factory-sealed and showed no signs of tampering, suggesting that they might have had access to a food-processing factory, agents involved in the case said.

The case highlights the increasingly sophisticated tactics drug trafficking organizations use to largely bypass traditional border security screening systems and walls. Even as the United States spends billions of dollars along the Mexican border — the main route for drug trafficking — as part of President Trump’s crackdown on border security, the traffickers have already found ways to avoid the cameras, drones, drug dogs and agents along the border, officials said.

Agents say the group may have also used the mail and parcels to avoid paying Mexican drug cartels for crossing their territory.