{"id":350421,"date":"2026-06-25T20:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T20:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/350421\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T20:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T20:26:08","slug":"dea-asks-watchdog-to-investigate-claims-that-agents-permitted-fentanyl-to-hit-the-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/350421\/","title":{"rendered":"DEA asks watchdog to investigate claims that agents permitted fentanyl to hit the streets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday asked the U.S. Justice Department\u2019s internal watchdog to investigate a whistleblower’s claims that DEA agents permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to hit the streets of New Mexico.<\/p>\n

The request came days after an Associated Press investigation found agents repeatedly monitored \u2014 but did not seize \u2014 major shipments of the synthetic opioid in a bid to build bigger criminal cases between 2023 and 2025.<\/p>\n

In a letter sent Thursday<\/a> to the U.S. Justice Department’s Inspector General, DEA administrator Terry Cole wrote that an internal probe was necessary because \u201cthe allegations have generated significant public attention and have raised questions regarding DEA\u2019s operational decisions, supervisory oversight, and response to concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole wrote in a public statement that his request \u201cshould not be interpreted as reflecting any lack of confidence in the professionalism or integrity of DEA personnel or in the investigative decisions made during this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf improvements are identified, DEA will implement them,\u201d he added. \u201cStrong institutions are sustained \u2014 not diminished \u2014 by objective oversight and a willingness to continuously assess and improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Current and former DEA agents told the AP the investigative strategy \u2014 known as letting the counterfeit painkillers \u201cwalk\u201d \u2014 amounted to a gamble with public safety in a state ravaged by the fentanyl epidemic and may have violated Justice Department rules intended to safeguard communities from a drug the White House last year designated as a \u201c weapon of mass destruction<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AP investigation cited three current and former agents and government records, including an internal report of a 2023 delivery of 74,000 pills the DEA watched happen at a mobile home park in Albuquerque. One of those agents, David Howell, first raised serious concerns about this strategy in a 2023 whistleblower complaint. He continued to raise his objections internally and spoke at length with the AP about what he described as a strategy that \u201cpoisoned our community to make cases.”<\/p>\n

In an earlier statement to AP, a DEA spokesperson said “public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts.”<\/p>\n

The DEA’s request for the watchdog investigation came just a day after New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham asked the state\u2019s attorney general to examine whether the agency\u2019s actions violated New Mexico law, an extraordinary challenge to a federal law enforcement agency at a time when fentanyl remains one of the country\u2019s deadliest public health threats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no words to describe how reckless and dangerous these decisions were,\u201d Lujan Grisham said in a statement. \u201cMake no mistake: the DEA knew people would die if these pills made it into New Mexico communities, and the agency let it happen anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday asked the U.S. Justice Department\u2019s internal watchdog to investigate a whistleblower’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[123220,124864,108003,2383,23681,59373,86082,59371,59372,61262,82,84,83,124865],"class_list":["post-350421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-david-howell","tag-dea-investigations-unseized-fentanyl-inspector-general","tag-michelle-lujan-grisham","tag-new-mexico","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30081-ap-new-mexico-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-terry-cole"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}