{"id":17636,"date":"2026-06-25T04:02:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=17636"},"modified":"2026-06-25T04:02:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:02:40","slug":"new-mexico-governor-calls-for-criminal-probe-of-dea-allowing-fentanyl-shipments-to-hit-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=17636","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico governor calls for criminal probe of DEA allowing fentanyl shipments to hit streets"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By JIM MUSTIAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

New Mexico\u2019s governor on Wednesday called for a criminal investigation into the Drug Enforcement Administration after an Associated Press investigation found federal agents allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach the streets over a two-year period while pursuing larger drug-trafficking cases.<\/p>\n

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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

The request follows an AP investigation that found DEA agents repeatedly allowed major fentanyl shipments to continue moving through New Mexico between 2023 and 2025 rather than seize them immediately, as agents sought to build cases against higher-ranking traffickers. The governor\u2019s call for a criminal review turns a debate over drug enforcement tactics into a question of whether federal agents themselves crossed legal lines while pursuing larger trafficking organizations.<\/p>\n

Current and former DEA agents told AP the strategy amounted to a gamble with public safety in a state ravaged by the fentanyl epidemic and may have violated U.S. Justice Department rules intended to safeguard the public from a drug the White House last year designated as a \u201c weapon of mass destruction.\u201d<\/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

The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the governor\u2019s statement. The agency has contended it would not be plausible to seize every drug shipment and previously told AP in a statement \u201cthe investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances and consistent with Department guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts,\u201d DEA spokesperson Amanda Wozniak wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Alex Uballez, who served as U.S. attorney in New Mexico from May 2022 until February 2025, told AP that drugs went unseized at times due to his office\u2019s limited resources and his belief that prosecuting larger organizations has a bigger impact than intercepting every suspected drug transaction.<\/p>\n

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It is not clear whether any fatal overdoses in the state can be directly attributed to the DEA strategy. While overdose deaths nationwide fell 14% last year, government data show New Mexico tallied a 21% spike.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Mexican lives are not the federal government\u2019s cost of doing business,\u201d the governor wrote in her statement. \u201cI plan to hold the federal government accountable for this disaster and will explore every possible avenue of action against the federal government to right these wrongs.\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 surveilled \u2014 but did not seize \u2014 at a mobile home park in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

DEA whistleblower David Howell, who filed a complaint drawing attention to the unseized fentanyl, spoke Wednesday with congressional staffers. Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group representing Howell, has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee and Justice Department\u2019s Office of Inspector General to investigate the agent\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n

Sen. Bernie Moreno, a Ohio Republican, called Howell\u2019s revelations \u201ca scandal of the highest order\u201d and said in a post on X he plans to find out how many American lives were lost due to the DEA\u2019s inaction.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, victims groups also spoke out about DEA\u2019s inaction, saying its approach in New Mexico contradicts the agency\u2019s prominent \u201cOne Pill Can Kill\u201d campaign that warns as little as a few milligrams of fentanyl can cause a fatal overdose.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing the Justice Department had guidelines to seize the opioids whenever practical \u2014 and the fact these were ignored \u2014 is truly heartbreaking,\u201d said Michael Glownia, who lost his daughter to fentanyl in 2023 and founded a nonprofit organization to support families suffering similar losses.<\/p>\n

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Mustian reported from Miami.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is calling for a criminal investigation into whether federal authorities broke state law by allowing fentanyl pills to reach the streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"yoast_head":"\nNew Mexico governor calls for criminal probe of DEA allowing fentanyl shipments to hit streets - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=17636\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Mexico governor calls for criminal probe of DEA allowing fentanyl shipments to hit streets - 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