Mexican Navy Flags Increase in Use of Chemicals to Produce Method

MANZANILO, MEXICO:

Mexican navy officials who run the country’s largest port are growing concerned about growing flows of unregulated “dual-use” chemicals used to make synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl, four Navy officials said. Reuters.

Mexico produces most of the fentanyl that ends up on US streets, according to US officials. In recent years Mexico has also become a major exporter of methamphetamine to Asian countries.

Navy officials in Manzanillo, Mexico’s largest port by volume, said they have seen an increase in imports of dual-use chemicals, mostly from China, used to make legitimate items such as food, perfume and pharmaceuticals, but also doubling as precursors for the synthesis of meth and fentanyl.

Navy officers, giving Reuters a tour of the Pacific coast port, urged the government to regulate the chemicals and highlighted the large tubs that have been seized and never claimed by Mexican companies importing them.

“Large amounts of ‘double’ substances have been found in clandestine labs, which gives us confidence that they are being used to produce synthetic drugs,” said the Navy’s chief of intelligence and risk analysis, who asked not to be identified for security reasons. .

Employees of a private company in full protective gear open a container of glacial acetic acid bulk liquid made in China while inspecting a shipment, at the port of Manzanillo, in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, July 4, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

The officer at the port of Manzanillo, located in the western state of Colima, pointed to a shipment from China seized in January of 88 metric tons of glacial acetic acid, an unregulated chemical used in the production of meth. Last month it was impounded because the importing company could not prove ownership.

Many of the seized substances, another Navy official said, are imported by companies in the states of Jalisco and Sinaloa, the bases of Mexico’s two largest drug-trafficking groups, the Sinaloa Cartel and its rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

“It is urgent to regulate the entry of dual substances into Mexico because, without it, criminal groups dedicated to the production of methamphetamine will continue to increase their production,” said a third Navy official, who also asked not to be named.

The Mexican government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The port of Manzanillo receives almost 60% of the containers that arrive in Mexico every day. A physical search is carried out for 2% of the goods as well as 10% of the ships that dock at the port. When there are tips of illegal inbound cargo, 100 percent of the products are investigated, officials say.

Regulation is urgently needed

Mexican cartels have long produced methamphetamine for the US market, but in the past year have increased their exports to countries as far away as Australia, the Netherlands and China.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its report last month included Mexico for the first time on its list of top producers of meth, along with Afghanistan, Burma and Syria.

Meth production in Mexico has increased by about 200 percent in the past three years, the third Navy official said.

“Manzanillo, because of its strategic location, is a window to ports in Asia, South America and North America,” said a fourth Navy official, who is the commander of the Manzanillo Port Unit.

“International cooperation is definitely of the utmost importance to be able to deal with these scourges,” he added.