MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president lashed out Monday at what he referred to as U.S. “spying” and “interference” in Mexico, days after U.S. prosecutors introduced costs towards 28 members of the Sinaloa cartel for smuggling huge quantities of fentanyl into the United States.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recommended Monday that the case had been constructed on info gathered by U.S. brokers in Mexico, and stated “foreign agents cannot be in Mexico.”

He referred to as the Sinaloa investigation “abusive, arrogant interference that should not be accepted under any circumstances.”

A former high U.S. drug enforcement agent referred to as the president’s feedback unjustified. Mike Vigil, former head of worldwide operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, stated López Obrador was mistakenly assuming that U.S. brokers wanted to be in Mexico to gather intelligence for the case. In reality, a lot of the case seems to have come from trafficking suspects caught within the U.S.

“He wants to completely destroy the working relationship that has taken decades to build,” Vigil stated. “This is going to translate into more drugs reaching the United States and more violence and corruption in Mexico.”

López Obrador continued Monday to explain fentanyl - an artificial opioid that causes about 70,000 overdose deaths yearly within the United States - as a U.S. drawback, claiming it isn’t made in Mexico. He has recommended American households hug their youngsters extra, or preserve their grownup youngsters at dwelling longer, to cease the fentanyl disaster.

The Mexican president additionally made it clear that preventing fentanyl trafficking takes a again seat to combating Mexico’s home safety issues, and that Mexico helps solely out of goodwill.

“What we have to do first is guarantee public safety in our country … that is the first thing,” López Obrador stated, “and in second place, help and cooperate with the U.S. government.”

Vigil identified that it was the exact same cartels trafficking fentanyl and methamphetamines that trigger many of the violence in Mexico. Avoiding confrontations with cartels is unlikely to carry peace, Vigil stated, noting “it is going to have exactly the opposite effect.”

The U.S. costs introduced Friday revealed the brutal and stunning strategies the cartel, based mostly within the northern state of Sinaloa, used to maneuver huge quantities of more and more low-cost fentanyl into the United States.

Apparently desirous to nook the market and construct up a core market of addicts, the cartel was wholesaling counterfeit capsules containing fentanyl for as little as 50 cents apiece.

López Obrador’s personal administration has acknowledged discovering dozens of labs the place fentanyl is produced in Mexico from Chinese precursor chemical compounds, primarily within the northern state of Sinaloa.

Most unlawful fentanyl is pressed by Mexican cartels into counterfeit capsules made to seem like different medicines like Xanax, oxycodone or Percocet, or combined into different medicine, together with heroin and cocaine. Many individuals who die of overdoses within the United States have no idea they're taking fentanyl.

López Obrador deeply resents U.S. allegations of corruption in Mexico, and fought tooth and nail to keep away from a U.S. trial of former protection secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos on U.S. costs of aiding a drug gang in 2020.

López Obrador at one level threatened to kick DEA brokers out of Mexico except the final was returned, which he was. Cienfuegos was rapidly freed as soon as he returned. Since then, the Mexican authorities has imposed restrictive guidelines on how brokers can function in Mexico, and slowed down visa approvals for a time.

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