Mexican cartels have turned to fentanyl
Smugglers are flooding the border with opioids
BY IOAN GRILLO
In the hills of Mexico City’s luxurious Lomas suburb, close to an embassy and UN offices, is a white pillared mansion that was the site of the world’s biggest ever drug cash bust. In 2007, Mexican federal agents stormed through its ornamental gates to discover a mountain of $205 million in bills, along with pesos, Euros and Hong Kong dollars. It did not, however, belong to one of Mexico’s scarred and bloodthirsty drug lords from the mountains; instead it was the property of the suited Chinese-born businessman Zhenli Ye Gon.
Ye Gon was making his fortune, say US and Mexican prosecutors, by importing the flu medicine pseudoephedrine from Chinese labs and selling it to Mexican gangsters who cooked it into crystal meth to traffic to the United States. A fan of high-stakes poker, Ye Gon was then jetting to Las Vegas, where he lost $125 million at tables (a casino was later ordered to hand over much of this to the US government) and bought a million-dollar home for a casino hostess. After a lengthy legal battle, Ye Gon was extradited back here to Mexico, where he sits in a high-security prison on drugs, organised crime, money laundering, and weapons charges.
At the time, when I covered the story, Ye Gon appeared to be a passing novelty. Importing chemicals from China contrasted with the cocaine and heroin trade I was investigating, in which you can go to the mountains and witness the peasant farmers harvest coca leaves and opium poppies. It’s apparent now, though, that Ye Gon was a pioneer, and that Mexican cartels have followed his lead to reshape their entire industry — with perilous consequences for Americans.
Since that record bust, Mexican traffickers have gradually shifted the core of their business from plant-based drugs to synthetic drugs — those created using man-made chemicals. These include meth and illegally-made fentanyl as well as others, such as ketamine. Synthetic drugs are cheaper to produce and more lethal, with fentanyl many times more powerful than heroin. To churn out these synthetics, cartels followed Ye Gon’s lead to forge an unholy alliance with shady elements of the Asian chemical industry.
More:
https://unherd.com/2022/12/mexican-cartels-have-turned-to-fentanyl/
Zhenli Ye Gon
Zhenli Ye Gon's mansion to be auctioned
Going for a walk with the nice gentlemen.
= new reply since forum marked as read
