American Thought Leaders - How Drug Cartels Infiltrated the Prescription Drug Market With Fake Pills: Michael Brown

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

In recent years, drug cartels have built a vast and lucrative business selling fake prescription drugs laced with fentanyl—which drives addiction faster than any other synthetic narcotic, says Michael Brown, who was a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for over three decades.The majority of people dying from fentanyl-related overdoses now are taking what they think is a fairly innocuous prescription drug like Xanax, and they have no idea that it’s been laced with fentanyl, he says.The DEA says seven out of ten pills seized by the organization contain a deadly dose of fentanyl.“You take that wrong pill for the first time, and your life is over,” Mr. Brown says.Now he’s global director for counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices, which produces equipment that can identify narcotic substances.“In the 60s and 70s, drug dealers were concerned about killing their clients, because they didn’t want to kill their clients. But the client base today is so vast and diverse that they can lose 100,000 and still make hundreds of millions of dollars,” Mr. Brown says.In this episode, he breaks down this new drug cartel business model, how the supply chain works, the role of Chinese money-laundering proxies, and what he believes it would take to turn the situation around.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

The cartel sat back and they looked at the American, America's addiction to prescription drugs. If we can infiltrate the prescription drug market with fake pills and put fentanyl in them, we can force that transition from prescription drugs to fentanyl. Michael Brown was a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration for over three decades. So we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars being wandered through Chinese-based companies in the United States, counts in China, back to Mexico. Now, he's global director for counter-narcotics technology at Regaco Analytical Devices. Then we have the gang-level violence, entire communities of young men killed over drug trafficking.

Is what's happening really an aspect of terrorism? This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Michael Brown, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Thank you. So we're going to talk about the fentanyl crisis in the United States, affecting so many people. Why don't you give me a sense of the broad picture very briefly of where we're at? That's such a broad topic because there's so many individuals, so many different paradigms being affected by Mexican cartel fentanyl. I'll start with a new paradigm, fake pills, right?

Fentanyl pills that are designed to look like Oxycontin, Adderall, Percocets, and Valiums. The cartel sat back and they looked at the American, America's addiction to prescription drugs. There's a lot of people in America who will never transition to illegal narcotics, i.e. meth, heroin, or cocaine, but they'll take prescription drugs. If we can infiltrate the prescription drug market with fake pills and put fentanyl in them, we can force that transition from prescription drugs to fentanyl. And again, they were very successful in creating that new paradigm.

A large majority of the overdose deaths we see now are people who thought they were taking an Oxycontin or a Vicodin, and it was a fentanyl pill with more than two milligrams of fentanyl, and it killed them within 30 seconds. So the cartels realized they were onto something. So then they started putting fentanyl into the cocaine supply. We're seeing it in the marijuana supply. They understand that fentanyl is so powerful and that the draw to the individual who is addicted will transition to fentanyl.

In some states, such as Massachusetts, drug users are only seeking out fentanyl now because it's so strong. So really it has changed a number of drug user paradigms to bring in people who are, generally speaking, they were not predisposed to using illicit narcotics. So for those of us that are not familiar with cartel strategy of getting people addicted to drugs. If you could explain a little bit why is it that you know there's a sort of this graduation from say a heroin or cocaine or something to fentanyl. How does that actually work? Because they seem to be pushing in that particular direction always right and fentanyl sort of seems to be on top of the chain. Well you know historically when

you talk about the distribution of narcotics, you know, we're talking about heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and, of course, now fentanyl. Each one of those drugs in and of itself is highly addictive. But fentanyl right now is the most addictive synthetic narcotic out there that's being sold. And in terms of addictive qualities, we're talking about potency, right? Fentanyl is 10 times stronger than heroin it's a hundred times stronger than morphine so as a drug trafficker I want to sell a product that's going to bring my customers back as frequently as possible and that means I'm going to sell them where I want to

sell them the most potent substance I have and right now the cartels have figured out that fentanyl right now is king of the game. The more fentanyl they can distribute, the more addiction they can attribute to that, and that means more profit for the cartels. Unfortunately, most people who die from an overdose-related fentanyl death are taking what they think is a Xanax, maybe the first time or the second time, and it's got that two milligrams of fentanyl in it, and they die. You hear the stories all the time about parents going into their kid's room, kid slumped over in bed, they find what they think is an Adderall under the pillow,

and it turns out to be a fentanyl pill with two milligrams of fentanyl. DEA has said now that seven out of ten pills have a lethal dose of fentanyl in it. And when you think about the millions of fentanyl pills which are distributed, right, seven out of ten, that's a blue pill, red pill selection, right? You take that wrong pill for the first time and your life is over. When I was growing up, kids smoked marijuana, they did some beer, you woke up the next day, you had a headache. Now if you make that mistake, you could lose your life. Did I hear you correctly that 7 out of 10 pills are lethal? According to DA statistics, what they're seeing now is 7 out of 10 pills have at least 2 milligrams of fentanyl in it. And when you think about the cooks in Mexico who are preparing these pills,

they're not using formulas and special equipment. It's a pinch of this, a pinch of that, mix it up and push it out. So, and the cartels know this, but they know if they lose 100,000 people, they're going to gain 300,000 new customers. So it's a cost benefits analysis, again, back to a business model. That actually yields growth? That yields sales, right? Because they know more people are going to use the narcotic than die. And then they look at the law enforcement response they don't see anything happening in China they don't see anything happening significantly in

Mexico so really there's no deterrent you know in the 60s and 70s unfortunately drug dealers were concerned about killing their clients because they don't want to kill their clients but the client base today is so vast and diverse that they can lose $100,000 and still make hundreds of millions of dollars. And, of course, in Mexico, you know, I think in the last 7 to 10 years, they've killed over 30,000 people have been killed in cartel violence, specific violence, right? So when they look at someone taking a pill and dying to the cartel that's just the cost of doing business when they're willing to go out and kill 15 20 people a day in order to maintain their business their business model I just want to talk a little bit more about this equation because I had assumed that 7 out of 10

are dying but some are have become acclimatized to the drug already maybe can take the two milligrams explain to me again how all this works forget you, you know, there's a couple things that affect that. Roughly, when you look at 200 people a day are dying across the country, those are 200 people that got those seven pills that have two milligrams of fentanyl in it. When you look at the pill distribution itself, you know, the cartels are cutting the pills with mannitol, they're cutting it with xylosine, benzodiazepines, and other substances which break down the toxicity of the pill. So a lot of individuals are surviving, they're not dying, but they're falling into a deeper web of addiction until they get that one bad pill.

And of course also people are using Narcan now. So people are overdosing, going into cardiac arrest, and their friends are Narcanning them back. So they're not dying. If Narcan was not on the scene right now, I think you'd see 10 out of 10 people dying, right? But Narcan, people understand that it can kill you. People don't use a loan anymore. So all these factors are coming into play, which are extending the life of individuals who would actually be dead if they didn't have this outside assistance, in my opinion. Tell me a little bit about this harm reduction model and how it plays into this whole dynamic that you're just outlining for me.

When we talk about harm reduction, that's a big field, right? And the idea of harm reduction is policies and procedures that reduce the harm caused by narcotic use. One of the big examples is the needle exchange program, which was done 20 years ago, in order to reduce the spread of blood-borne diseases such as HIV, hepatitis, et cetera. But in the process, it provided clean needles, which allowed individuals to sustain their drug usage. So it reduced one harm but increased another harm, which is long-term drug usage. But now I think what we're seeing is what I call

progressive harm reduction policies. And I'll give you an example. In Colorado in 2020, they initiated Bill 110, which decriminalized the personal use of narcotics, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and originally fentanyl, but then they took that back. It basically legitimized drug usage. In the last three years, it's been a complete disaster. They've had to call back that bill because they saw increased fentanyl usage, increased overdose fatalities, increased drug distribution in their city.

So that harm reduction program was unsuccessful. But even then, Oregon is trying to do a harm reduction program that mimics Colorado's. New York has a harm reduction program where you can actually go into what they call safe site injection locations and use dangerous narcotics. And if you overdose, there's a staff member there ready to bring you back.

Now they consider that a success. Of of course we want to save lives. But are we saving lives in order to let them die at another time, or should we be more progressive in getting people to abstain from drug use in whatever policies and treatment programs that that requires? You know, from what I understand, people that are in these what are, I think, fairly called open-air drug market type scenarios, the life expectancy is very low there because, you know, it's just a matter of time before someone overdoses or, you know, gets hurt by other people that are there. Everybody I've spoken with that has made it out has said that some

kind of intervention where someone said, if you don't stop this, you're going to die, I'm going to help you, but you have to stop. Something like that happened, and hence they credit that for them being alive, not these so-called harm reduction policies. You know, I have a podcast called The Opioid Matrix, and I recently had on a guest who was addicted to narcotics. And until she went to jail, that was the defining moment in her life. And when I spoke to her, she said, if I hadn't gone to jail, I would be dead right now because I was going to commit suicide using narcotics. So I went in to do something, to steal some stuff, to buy drugs, to commit suicide. And I got arrested and I went to jail. And in jail, I was born again. She became a Christian. And now she's been out, I think she's been

clean for a number of years. She's running a drug rehabilitation program. And she said to me, she said, Mike, you know, our secrets can kill us. Meaning she had this whole life of trauma she never talked about. She didn't have anyone to talk to. And because of that trauma she got into drug addiction and almost lost her life. But a lot of the individuals I talked to who have come out of severe drug addiction came to a moment of self-realization, that this is not what I want for my life. And of course we understand a lot of people don't have that self-determination and we have to be there to support them. But we cannot support them by saying we accept your dangerous drug usage, we're going to enable your dangerous drug usage,

and if you live and come through it, maybe you'll get clean. Well, and of course there's the 12-step program, right? And for decades, alcoholics have been an effective program. But a pillar of that program is you never touch the stuff, right? That is a staple of the 12-step program. You have to stop drinking completely. I've never heard of an AA program, Alcoholics Anonymous, where they say, well, it's okay. Come into the bar.

We'll give you a drink and we'll drive you home. That's not going to work. And if you talk to any alcoholic, they will tell you if they take that drink, they're going to fall back into that web of addiction. So why do we treat those who are addicted to narcotics differently than we treat those who are addicted to alcohol? If you can outline for me the entirety of this fentanyl supply chain, all the way from the precursors to these different products that are sometimes fake pills, if you can explain that are sometimes fake pills. If you can explain that to me.

Sure. Let's imagine you're a precursor chemical broker in Mexico. You work for the Sinaloa cartel. You can go on your phone app and go through your contact list, and you can reach out to one of several chemical brokers in China, say, look, I need four pounds of some precursors for fentanyl. They will then go to a chemical supplier, purchase those chemicals, say, look, I need four pounds of some precursors for fentanyl. They will then go to a chemical supplier, purchase those chemicals, and then send them to you air cargo or express parcel with an international courier.

So you get a tracking number. You can track your package, and if your package doesn't arrive, they'll send you another package. So let's imagine the broker then coordinates some fentanyl precursors to be sent from a broker in a company in China to Sinaloa in Mexico. That will come to an individual's house. They'll take that to the cartel. The cartel will then take those precursors to one of the clandestine laboratories, what will then be produced into fentanyl powder or pressed into pills.

If I can just jump in for a sec, are the precursors legal to import or not? Well see that's where we get into a very complex conversation because a lot of the essential precursors are restricted, even in Mexico. So what the cartels have done, they've hired chemists and they've created secondary routes where they can use what's called dual purpose chemicals. For example, there's a precursor chemical that's used to make an anti-Parkinson's medicine. That same precursor is an intermediate that can be used to make the precursors

required to make fentanyl. So the cartels have been able to sidestep around the restricted chemicals and then go to unrestricted chemicals in order to make the precursors necessary to make fentanyl. And I saw this with methamphetamine when I was working in Miramar, my last overseas post, where the cartels in Miramar have figured out a way to make ephedrine, pseudephedrine, and other essential precursors with non-regulated precursors.

And for example, xylosine is a schedule 2 substance that's used as a veterinarian sedative. So how do you regulate something that's already regulated if someone decides to use it for an illegal purpose? So you can go into Home Depot or not Home Depot, any hardware store and you can pick up a substance that's legal and if you know how to convert it to an illegal process you could use it so now we're into a very complicated process of managing things that really can't be regulated okay so they've gotten their chemicals somehow and so let's continue with that with this how the supply chain works okay so once we produce the fentanyl in the laboratory,

we'll then take it to a special shop. We used to call these a shop where vehicles have hidden traps, right? And a trap is simply a hidden compartment that's built into the vehicle where fentanyl can be located and smuggled across the border. A lot of CBP, Custom Border Protection, seizures, they're searching vehicles and they're finding millions of pills hidden in wheel wells, dashboards, engine blocks, and then those cars are generally going to the United States. They're taken apart. Drugs are taken out. So again, as I said earlier, we know 95%, if not more, of the fentanyl pills being smuggled into the country or smuggled in vehicles, commercial cargo, or we see backpackers

also coming across the border as part of the gotaways, right? But the majority, I would say, is coming right across the border because it's bulk shipment. In order to make money, the cartels have to move billions of pills, millions of pills at one time, distribute them, have those profits come back to Mexico. Now, what about these, at what stage is it kind of decided whether you're going to make these fake pills to get people addicted or some other way? I don't even know, what are the ways that people consume fentanyl in the first place now? What should you kind of be careful with here, right? Well, if you're a cartel, you're looking at

what prescription drugs are people using the most? Are they using Percocets, are they using Xanax, are they using Adderalls, right? And if you identify, let's say the top 10 prescription drugs being used in the United States from teenagers all the way to someone on cancer medication. Then you're going to say, okay, let's press out fentanyl pills that look like these top 10 pills and distribute them into the market.

Now if you're using fentanyl, let's say you're a substance abuser and you're using fentanyl. Well, you can smoke it, you can inject it, you can mix it with other narcotics. For example, the cartels mixed it in with heroin. Most people use heroin by injecting it. But you can also smoke it, but the injection gets it into your system the fastest. But then smoking, for example, crack cocaine gets it into your brain much faster than you would injecting it. So depending on what type of drug you're using determines the ingestion methodology. And these two milligram pills that you were describing

earlier that can kill you, or are likely to kill you, how is that, is that also used in all these different ways? Like I just don't know how all this works. Well you're talking about two milligrams, let's just say a deadly dose of fentanyl is two milligrams or more. So in a regular size pill, it'll mostly be combined with say mannitol,

maybe a binding agent, and then they'll put in that two milligrams of fentanyl, mix it up and press it into a pill. And you're popping that. And that's what somebody who thinks it's an Adderall, they're taking that pill. And that two milligrams that. And that's what somebody who thinks it's an Adderall, they're taking that pill. And that two milligrams is going to most likely kill them within 30 seconds.

How are they finding these pills? Like how are the pills getting into the drug, the normal drug supply chain? Or do they, or these are just off the street? Or how does it work? Well, there's already an illicit prescription drug supply chain. There are dealers out there selling, you know, legitimate Oxycontins, legitimate Adderalls, legitimate Xanax.

So the supply chain is already there. The method of distribution is already there. They're just simply now putting in new substances into that existing supply chain which are being distributed. So if you're looking, if you're going to buy a non-prescribed Percocet from your local dealer, he may not even know he's selling you a Percocet that's actually fentanyl. So the dealers in Mexico, whoever's actually mixing it, are not necessarily telling their customer base or their redistributors that, hey, these pills have fentanyl in it. You know, and of course, we have the domestic drug trafficking hey these pills have fentanyl in it. You know and of course we have the domestic drug trafficking groups who are buying

fentanyl from the cartels and then mixing in some of these substances and making their own pills for distribution. So one of these paradigms is you do the new paradigm is these you know putting it into these fake pills right another one is sort of the most more traditional way where you're, you know, adulterating other drugs with fentanyl or, I suppose, selling it a lot just straight up. Right. Are there other paradigms here or these are the main two? Those are, I would say, the main three, right? You have your long-term substance user, you have your prescription drug user, and then you have your occasional recreational drug user.

You've seen a number of individuals who use cocaine recreationally have died because it had fentanyl in it. I think one of the most notable cases was the West Point graduates in Miami some years ago bought some cocaine and it had fentanyl in it. It killed, I think, three individuals. There is the risk. The cartels now see a larger market. They see those individuals who use cocaine recreationally. Maybe a businessman or a housewife takes a hit of cocaine once or twice a month, maybe once a year. But now it could have fentanyl in it. And the cartels look at that much larger market and say, maybe we can replicate with cocaine what we did with heroin. I don't think it's to that point yet, but certainly we're seeing what I would call

an experimental level of drug alteration with fentanyl into cocaine and fentanyl into marijuana. So tell me a little bit about your background, how you've come to know so much about fentanyl and the whole kind of landscape of the drug industry. You know, I recently retired from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration approximately two years ago. I started in 1989. I had an opportunity to go to U.S. Army Ranger School to qualify for South American Interdiction Program, which I did for about three to four years. And then I spent about 20 to 25 years working overseas in drug production countries, primarily the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I spent my last two

years at DEA headquarters working as part of the transnational task force on organized crime targeting precursor chemicals and larger drug trafficking organizations. And now I'm the director of counter narcotics technology for Ragaku Analytical Devices. And basically that's a company that produces the term Raman spectroscopy, right? Complicated term. Basically it means they produce a device that uses a laser to identify unknown substances. For example, if a police officer was to stop a vehicle and they had a number of plastic baggies with an unknown powder in it, using that device you could quickly identify

what that substance was referred to as a presumptive analysis. Well right, because fentanyl has kind of changed the equation around how you can even tell if you could be dead just by touching, right, a substance. Absolutely, you know, and for law enforcement, every drug situation now is a hazmat situation, in my opinion, because if you do find a baggie or a package with an unknown substance, you don't want to open it up because it could be fentanyl or another substance that could prove harmful to the officer or the individual who has it. So using this advanced Raman technology,

you can scan that package and identify what it is in most cases without having to open it up. Fascinating. You know, I want to touch on the, you mentioned you did this work in precursors, right? And of course we know that communist China is the source of a lot of the fentanyl precursors, possibly others. So maybe tell me a little bit about that.

Well, you can go back 20 or 30 years. We've been following the precursors from primarily China to South America, Colombia, and Peru for the production of cocaine and heroin. And, of course, Mexico now is the predominant cartel on the block, right? You have your top five or six cartels in Mexico producing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and now, of course, fentanyl. And all those drugs, some of those are semi-synthetics, but fentanyl and methamphetamine are synthetics, which means they require precursor chemicals

in order to produce. Well, so, you know, our view here at the Epoch Times is, you know, communist China has been engaged in all sorts of what are called asymmetrical warfare techniques against the United States for decades. And of course, you know, drug warfare is one of them. Some people have described it as a kind of reverse opium war of sorts, right? So if you could just tell me a little bit, how does the communist regime work with the cartels to ultimately get the fentanyl and other drugs into America? Well, I would say right now there's no direct evidence that says the PRC

is directly involved in working with the cartels. But certainly we know that the PRC is aware of the cartel relationship with Chinese chemical producers and Chinese brokers. You know, we have a DEA office in Beijing that works closely with the PRC, but I would say it's more a concept of willful blindness, understanding the situation and simply allowing it to happen, saying, well, we're doing what we can, but really the drug problem is a U.S. problem.

It's an addiction problem. It's a demand problem. The United States needs to deal with their own problem before they blame China. And that's generally been the party line that I've heard over the years from China concerning the precursor chemical supply chain. Well, given what we've seen over the past few decades, I'm deeply skeptical that the communist regime is going to be helping America in this respect. I would say in 2019 and 2020, the U.S. worked very closely with China, the PRC, in getting fentanyl regulated as well as its analogs to stop those companies, chemical companies, from shipping it to the United States.

That was a success. But then China simply continued to work with the Mexican cartels. to stop those companies, chemical companies, from shipping it to the United States. That was a success. But then China simply continued to work with the Mexican cartels, right? The Chinese companies and China said, well, we'll just ship it to the cartels, and then they'll do whatever they want to do with it. That was the transition that no one saw coming, right? So China says, hey, we did our part. We stopped it from coming to the United States, but our relationship with Mexico has nothing to do with the United States.

What Mexico does with those chemicals is their own responsibility. You cannot hold us responsible for that. So that was the PRC's way of saying, hey, it's not our problem. We are simply selling legitimate chemicals to a legitimate country. Go talk to Mexico. It's their problem. So recently the DEA has actually taken a number of Chinese nationals to task around fentanyl enforcement. I'm sure you're familiar with the case, but can you give me a sense of what happened?

Yes, DEA, working with the task force, did an undercover operation targeting eight Chinese companies and 13 Chinese individuals who were involved in an undercover operation to eight Chinese companies and 13 Chinese individuals who were involved in an undercover operation to send fentolin or its precursors to the United States. That case was so successful that they got an indictment on the 13 individuals, and they indicted the eight companies. Now, in my opinion, the true metric of whether China will assist the United States, as they said they will, is will they initiate their own investigation based on the indictments that DEA has provided them. And believe me,

DEA, if they get an indictment, I guarantee you that case is 100 percent. And those individuals in China are responsible for what the indictment says they did. So we talked about, you know, the sort of the business model of transitioning people who are addicted to a lower strength opiate to something that's higher strength. Now they require this illicit material because the other stuff just isn't good enough, isn't going to fix the addiction, isn't good enough isn't gonna fix the addiction isn't gonna fix the problem this is now kind of metastasized and I guess my question is you know there have been ways in the past some of which you've been involved with I believe right that have you know successfully I

guess tackled this issue but that we seem to be unable to deal with it today. Well, you know, I've spent 20 to 25 years working overseas in several different countries and conducted numerous bilateral investigations, which resulted in very successful operations, arrests of targets, seizures of narcotics. But the success of those operations depended 100% on the bilateral relationship we had with those countries. For example, DEA has two offices in Colombia, and we worked very well with the Colombian national government, the military and their counter-drug units, so successfully that we were able to take down the Medellin cartel run by Pablo Escobar and later the Cali cartel.

So that relationship was critical in taking those cartels down. So we've been here before. So again, when we talk about fentanyl, and to be specific, we're talking about Mexican cartel fentanyl, not medical use fentanyl. Sometimes there's a confusion there. But when we're talking about degrading the ability of the cartels to acquire the precursor chemicals and to make the fentanyl and ship it across the border, that will require a very strong bilateral relationship with the Mexican government and with the Chinese government. The fentanyl problem as it is now has surpassed, in my opinion, the ability of U.S. law enforcement to effectively degrade it at its center of gravity,

which is in Mexico for the production, and China for where the chemicals originate. So unless we have a good relationship with either the Chinese regime or Mexico, you don't think we can tackle this? We need both, right, because one is a source of the chemicals, the other is a source of drug production and transshipment into the United States. So we really need a trilateral relationship with each country working together with the United States. So what do we do if we can't achieve that? Because I think that's a tall order. Well, what we do is we continue to do what we're doing. We have investigations,

we make drug seizures, we have harm reduction policies, but we cannot keep up with the rate of addiction and treatment as opposed to the amount of narcotics which are coming into this country at record levels. We're basically drowning right now in narcotic addiction. You know, I immediately think of things like, you know, we have this, you know, extreme border situation which allows for, I guess, an ease of movement of drugs across the border there. We have policies like de minimis and fentanyl, of course, is so such small amounts are incredibly potent. Then you can easily kind of transmit it in ways that, you know, basically evade detection in the process. And there isn't even a custom step involved. Right. So can't we tackle those

types of things? Like wouldn't tackling the border, wouldn't tackling de minimis, wouldn't that have an impact, I guess is my question. When we talk about cartel critical capabilities and vulnerabilities, there are five, right? One being the ability to procure precursor chemicals from China. The second is the ability to transship those chemicals to Mexico via maritime, air cargo, or express parcel. The third critical capability is the ability to produce the precursors into a refined product. The fourth, the ability to smuggle it across the border. And the fifth, the ability to get the money, profit from distribution, back to Mexico. So unless you can degrade two of those critical capabilities,

you're not going to be able to break that supply chain. Right now, really in the current system that we have, the most critical vulnerability that we have access to is the open border checkpoints. That is, in my opinion, where we need to concentrate our efforts in order to stop the cross-border smuggling. Because we know that 95 percent of all narcotics from Mexico come in concealed in vehicles or cargo right across the border into the United States. And what would be the second? So let's say, Lano, let's say that that

one is dealt with. I mean, it doesn't, I think we're seeing record numbers of people coming through at the moment, which that means is that border security is basically completely consumed with dealing with the people, not the smuggling that's happening, that's not non-people smuggling, right? But let's say that's dealt with. What's the second pillar that you think could be tackled? Well, there's that old saying, I can only do what's in my control. So the first three of those critical capabilities are outside of my control as law enforcement because they're in other countries. So crossing the border, customs has control of that. We also have control of going after the money laundering aspect, right? Because cartels are in business to do what? To make money. So we're talking about

hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars being generated in the United States from narcotic sales, which Chinese money laundering organizations move through businesses to China and then into Mexico. My plan would be, one, strengthen up the border capability, and two, initiate massive money laundering investigations to all Chinese proxies that are working in conjunction with the cartels in the United States. And that's very interesting. And we have covered both the Chinese drug component and the Chinese money laundering component

on the show before, but there's sort of involvement in two very distinct areas, presumably by different players or at least on the surface by different players. Can you explain to me how this money laundering component works? So one of the most usable applications is what they call mirror transfers. Let's say I'm a Sinaloa cartel, I have $100,000 and I want to repatriate back to Mexican accounts. I'll take that $100,000, give it to my Chinese counterpart. He will then take that money

and break it down and give it to Chinese businesses in the United States, say laundromats, restaurants, other industries. Those companies will then put that money into their Chinese accounts in Beijing or China. They will then wire that money back to the accounts in Mexico. The cartels go into the bank, take it out. It's completely clean. So we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars being laundered through a remittance or mirror process through Chinese-based companies in the United States, accounts in China, Chinese accounts back to Mexico.

If you were able to shut down that money train and deter Chinese money launderers or anyone involved in money laundering to assist the cartels, they would back away because they were risking their businesses, they're risking their livelihood, and they're making a profit. So take that away. And that will, I think, discourage a lot of Chinese money launderers, or money launderers in general, from assisting the cartels.

And that way we isolate the cartels. Because if their money is stacked up in the United States, it's very difficult to smuggle bulk cash back into Mexico now. One of the policy solutions that's been posited has of course its own set of very serious problems is to designate these cartels as terrorist organizations. I think there's a probably a strong case to be made for that and that allows for certain type of activity against those you know military activity against those against those

cartels. How do you view that? You know, again, I said we've been here before, and treating cartels as narco-terrorist organizations, we've done that before, right? I mentioned the Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel. But it requires the bilateral relationship. It's key that you have the bilateral relationship, because without the cooperation of the Colombian government, Pablo Escobar would be still active, possibly. So when I'm thinking about the possible outcomes of the Chinese regime prosecuting

these people involved in fentanyl in the U.S., I can't help but think of the Mexican defense secretary recently who was originally you know, originally indicted here, eventually released. And, you know, I guess not much happened subsequently. Right. You're talking about General Cienfuegos. DEA initiated an investigation on him and identified that he was assisting some of the cartels in smuggling narcotics across the border. They got an indictment. They then do a lure operation, which they lured him from Mexico to the United States. They arrested him, and they were going to prosecute him for assisting in aiding cartel activity.

Of course, the Mexican government demanded his immediate release and said that the investigation was a sham and that if he wasn't released, there would be serious diplomatic consequences affecting the DEA country office in Mexico City and possibly embassy, U.S. embassy operations in general. Of course, this current administration released Cienfuegos, and he went back to Mexico. The Mexican president said, we'll do our own investigation, and then later stated that the DEA investigation was fraudulent, that the general had done nothing wrong, and that was the end of the investigation. So, obviously, General Zafuego was operating at the highest levels of the Mexican government, and he was involved in working with cartels. Is that an indictment against the Mexican government? I don't know. But certainly, he

was in a position of extreme authority, and when he was caught and D.A. provided the evidence, the Mexican government said they simply chose to ignore that evidence. And of course, the president of Mexico some months ago said there are no precursor chemicals in Mexico. There's no fentanyl production in Mexico and blamed the United States saying the parents aren't raising their kids properly. That's why kids were dying from drug addiction. We've talked a lot about fentanyl, and I get the sense that, you know, the drug dealers are trying to kind of, you know, progress people to fentanyl because it's so addictive, right, and basically people are on it, you know, I guess until the end.

But can you give me a picture of just the whole picture of drug use in America, this illicit drug use? When you talk about substance users, there are a variety of substance users, some just like heroin, some like crack cocaine, cocaine, some like methamphetamine, some like just marijuana, LSD, filocibin. The drug use, its culture is very diverse, and cartels and drug dealers know that. So, I mean, imagine if you were going into a market. You have various items that you can select. So drug dealers will tend to push that substance, which is selling the best. If you go back to the 80s and 90s when crack cocaine hit the market, crack cocaine was a phenomenal sales success

because it addicted people fast, the addiction wore off, and then they wanted to buy more. So for a drug dealer, if I can sell you a substance that's gonna get you high fast and you're gonna come down fast, you're gonna come back for what they call the re-up. So I'm gonna make more money the faster you come down fast, you're going to come back for what they call the re-up. So I'm going to make more money the faster you come down. With fentanyl, the intoxication or the addiction is very quick and it can last for maybe 30

minutes to an hour. But then if you put xylosine in it, the drug traffic can stretch that high out to maybe two or three hours or more. Then when the individual comes down, there no there's no recovery time that individuals come right back for the re-up and that's going to make me as drug dealer more money I don't want to sell you something that's going to keep you high for five or six hours and you're going to go home and come back two weeks later I'm not going to make any money that way so fentanyl really revolutionized I would

say Mexican cartel fentanyl, revolutionized the drug game because it got people addicted quickly because it's very potent and you come down and you want it more. And then we get into the physical effects on the body. When you talk about heroin, when you talk about cocaine, and then you talk about methamphetamine, all very addictive but not as strong as fentanyl. Fentanyl is one of the strongest narcotics out there until you go to carfentanyl, which is 10 times more powerful than fentanyl, right? That would be the next level.

So in terms of the drug market, Mexican cartels realize we're selling more fentanyl now than heroin. They're actually cutting back on the production of heroin and replacing it with fentanyl production for a number of economic reasons. It's just a better drug, it's cheaper, you can produce more of it, and more people will use it. So again back to that business model, distribution and production of fentanyl is a huge success for the cartels. And it's still astonishing given the amount of death it causes. It's the fentanyl that's responsible for the increase in drug-related death primarily, right?

And nonetheless, people still keep going back to it. That's the addiction factor, right? I mean, people used to sarcastically joke, with heroin addiction, it would take you 20 years to die. With fentanyl, it only takes that first time, and in 30 seconds you could be dead. But again, from the perspective of the cartels, they just look at drug users as profit. They represent dollar signs. There's no concern, there's no humanity involved in drug trafficking, right? You're talking about individuals who are some of the most dangerous and less sympathetic

people in the world. Drug traffickers and that's when we get back to the term narco-terrorism. Is what's happening really an aspect of terrorism? Entire communities are being destroyed through the distribution of narcotics. Then we have the gang level violence like in Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, where we're seeing entire communities of young men killed over drug trafficking. And then we talk about the families of individuals who are using narcotics, the devastation that that causes the families, the community.

So not only is the drug user suffering, but the entire community is suffering. How does addiction work? I mean, is it as simple as there being just a physical, you know, something that creates a physical dependency and that's it? Or is there more? I mean, I've heard about various explanations of this and all this. What's your view? You know, when I was working, when I worked in Detroit for a number of years and we worked, I was on a crack task force. You know, I talked to a lot of individuals who were using crack cocaine and the way they explained it is the first time they tried crack cocaine was the last time they tried anything else.

They said crack cocaine was so powerful, it basically rewired the brain system, the dopamine, right? It's all about what causes the body to produce dopamine, which is your pleasure receptors. Cracked cocaine, without getting into the medical terms, basically rewired those dopamine receptors to produce more dopamine very, very rapidly, which creates the addiction. The body then becomes adjusted to a new stimulant that it says, wow, that was really good. I want that. And then the user basically loses control of that, and he has to feed that addiction. That's why crack cocaine distribution was so successful for almost 20 years. And even now, we're seeing a

resurgence of crack usage in cities like New York and Chicago and out on the West Coast. So, you know, we're repeating the mistakes of the past. We're falling back into the same web of addiction that we've been trying to get out of for at least as long as I've been on the job, and that was 32 years. We seem to be losing that battle, though, especially with fentanyl. You know, I've spoken with a number of people who have, you know, view addiction more like a kind of a social disease, like the people who are prone to becoming addicted are people who don't have very good social connections,

for example, or perhaps ways to kind of get out of it if they first get pulled in through one of these fake drugs or something. There's examples of, you know, something that's often described as a success story is Portugal, you know, decriminalizing a lot of drugs, having programs that foster community for those people that are prone. How do you view that? I think first you have to look at the difference between Portugal and the United States.

The United States is a multi-diverse country with many ethnic groups. You have African-American, you have Hispanics, you have Asians. A lot of groups are here. Portugal is primarily all homogeneous culture, right? But when you look at the diversity in America, African-American communities and Hispanic communities have a much higher drug addiction rate, arrest rate, low economic status. There's a number of factors in poor communities in the United States that lead to drug addiction. Portugal does not have that same issue. They do not have pockets of African Americans and Hispanics and other minority groups who

are at the lower end of the social spectrum. That's one distinct difference. The other difference is in Portugal you don't have the same gang and drug culture. It's completely different. You don't see organized crime groups killing and causing a lot of violence in Portugal. It's a different mentality. The third issue is Portugal has said if you get caught using narcotics, you don't go to jail, but if you don't go to rehab, you could lose your driver's license, your passport, your ability to work.

So most people say, okay, I'll go to rehab and I'll continue to use narcotics. But what that hasn't done is reduce the amount of cocaine being distributed in Portugal. Europe has seen dramatic increases in the distribution of cocaine because of these liberal policies. So if you're sent a little cartel, you're sitting back, you're loving decriminalization because it's not stopping the amount of cocaine coming into your country. It may be managing addiction, but it's not ending addiction. And if you look at the rates of people who actually have been gone through detox and stopped using cocaine, ask them

what that number is and you will find, I believe, that you will see that a lot of people are now just long-term drug users. Fascinating. It's something I kind of want to look deeper into as well on the show. I'm very concerned about the fact that these drugs can be made out of precursors that might be legitimate through a multistage process, and it almost feels like it's impossible to disrupt that supply chain, at least potentially. Do you see any way through that? I think we had an opportunity many, many years ago to go after the supply chain. Earlier, I mentioned the precursor chemicals coming from China to Colombia to produce cocaine.

One of the primary precursors is acetic anhydride, often referred to as AA. And it has to be shipped maritime in containers because it's 55-gallon drums. You're talking hundreds of metric tons of acidic anhydride that's being shipped from China to Colombia for the last 40 years to produce the amount of cocaine. We never really, we and I say U.S. law enforcement or international law enforcement, never really focused on disrupting that supply chain. They always focused on the tail end, going after the heads of the cartels, going after the transportation networks in the United States. Never focused on the center of gravity, which are the chemicals. So that was allowed to, and you used the term cancer, it was allowed to metastasize to what it is now. With the invention of the internet, online chemical formulas,

many individuals have taken it upon themselves now to simply teach themselves how to make their own narcotics. For example, in the 1990s we saw bath salts. You go into a smoke shop, it would say, potpourri, not for human use. But everybody knew you could go in there and you could smoke it or you could inject it, and you would get a high. What would take DEA about 12 months to 18 months to regulate that particular substance. But the traffickers knew within 18 months,

we'll create a new bath salt by changing the molecule structure. Just one molecule off, and it's a new substance. And now with the advent of AI, right, artificial intelligence coming on, if I'm a chemist, I can go in with a good AI program and I can make a restructured fentanyl formula that's completely legal. And as you in law enforcement, it'll take you 18 months to regulate that. By that time, I have another six formulas ready to go. So now we see how the internet has revolutionized drug trafficking and made it much more difficult to investigate and

to degrade. You paint, and we haven't even talked, you alluded to this a little bit earlier, but you know, the relationship with drugs and gang violence and everything else in America, which is something that you're also, maybe comment briefly on that. I mean, the whole picture I'm seeing is kind of a very grim one, right? That's what I'm getting at here. Sure. I mean, again, I'll reflect back on my experience in Detroit. When crack cocaine came out, every street crew, every gang wanted to sell crack cocaine because that was the fastest way to make the most money. And, of course, Detroit's a small city, and the drug trafficking was condensed in certain areas.

But in those areas, you could have five or six different groups. So now they're all struggling to increase their territory for distribution sales. So we saw an increase in violence. I think when I was working there, they had homicide rates that exceeded 400 homicides a year, if not higher. It was one of the highest death rates in the country related to drug trafficking or gang activity. So as a cartel, even in Mexico, you see the fight between the Sinaloa cartel or the Zetas or the Templars because they're all fighting for control of the plazas. And the plazas are that territory between Mexico and the United States. Whoever controls those

entry points controls the kingdom. I call it the game of thrones between cartels. So the cartels have been fighting and killing each other for the last three decades. And as I mentioned earlier, in the last 15 to 20 years, more than 30 or 40,000 people have been killed as a result of the cartel violence. That has spilled over into America. We're seeing now, we have MS-13 around the country killing people, you have your Crips Bloods, you have your Latin Kings, you have your other groups

who are at times fighting each other for expansion of territory to increase drug distribution, which makes more money. This is a very grim picture. Okay. As a typical person living a normal life, how do you avoid getting sucked into this whole world you know that's that's a that's a complicated question I mean you have to learn how to manage your stress I mean we live in a culture today you know I was looking at the internet and there's a new drug out that helps people manage their weight without exercising and it was like it's all the rave I said this is America's problem we take a pill for everything we have we

have forgotten the basics basics of-management, managing our stress, managing our outcomes, and relying on our own abilities to deal with those issues. that. But we are so quick as a culture to turn towards medicating ourselves out of our problems. And then we get addicted to the prescription drugs, which created a window for the cartels to move in with their fake prescription drugs. And now we have this 100,000 overdose-rated, 100,000 deaths a year, right? So again, you know, and as parents, we have to talk to our kids, right? The individual I had on my talk show, the Opioid Matrix, said, you've got to have your kids, you've got to talk to them. You have to get them to open up so you can see where they're at. And a lot of parents are saying, hey, I'm doing that.

And I still missed it. Unfortunately, that's going to happen. But I think as parents, as relatives, we have to be more involved in the day-to-day lives of our circle. So we can see those signs and we can get in quickly and try and get people help. And as they say in harm reduction, we want to meet you where you're at, which I agree with. And I mean, I think, as you said, non-medication interventions as an alternative, not necessarily be seeking out for a medication solution for everything. Yeah, I mean, some of the stats I saw recently, 25 million Americans were on some sort of prescription drug.

When I look back to the time of my father and my grandfather, there was no prescription drugs. It was just hard work. You study, you do hard, and you succeed. And that was the message that was passed down to me by my father. And certainly, they had stress. There were difficult situations. But as you said, it was a non-medicated aspect. Medicine had not evolved to the point that it was now where you can go to your doctor and get a prescription for pretty much anything that ills you, which leads to a form of addiction. You become dependent on that prescription drug. For example, what's the value, right? It's overly prescribed, ketamine to some extent.

It was recently, I think Matthew Perry, recently his autopsy indicated that he had some ketamine in his system, which was very unfortunate. But there are a lot of prescription drugs out there that people are becoming or are addicted to. And again, that creates a window of opportunity for traffickers to slip something in. A final thought as we finish? You know, I think America has to realize the opioid crisis, or what I call the fentanyl crisis, is not going to resolve itself on its own. It's going to take, as I said earlier, a serious bilateral effort with China and Mexico to at least degrade two or three of those critical capabilities I mentioned earlier. If China and Mexico are unwilling to cooperate, the question then for the

administration is, do we simply tolerate another 100,000 overdose deaths by the end of the year, or do we look at looking at cartels as narco-terrorist organizations, such as we did with Medellin cartel or the FARC in Colombia, and take more aggressive action? That is the decision I think the administration and the American people have to make. Well, Michael Brown, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you all for joining Michael Brown and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.