Morning Wire - How Agents Unraveled a Deadly Social Media Drug Ring | 12.10.23

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

Join us on a chilling journey into a two-year investigation revealing how a national drug ring used social media to distribute drugs across the entire U.S. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A two-year investigation into the death of a Washington, D.C. woman has led to dozens of people charged and millions of dollars' worth of goods seized by authorities. In this episode, we discuss how investigators traced the source of that lethal dose across state and national lines, and how the entire supply chain was facilitated by Instagram. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's December 10th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce joins us to talk about Diamond Lynch and how her death led to the destruction of a national drug ring. So Tim, first off, who was Diamond Lynch? Lynch was a 20-year-old D.C. resident who overdosed on fentanyl two years ago.

Lynch was at the time trying to recover from drug addiction. She had OD'd at least once before and was saved with Narcan. She apparently relapsed shortly after her son's first birthday. According to authorities, she took a single pill that she thought was Perkissette. It turned out to be laced with fentanyl, and it caused her to fatally overdose. Her death started an intensive investigation by the DEA and FBI into the drug trade in the U.S. Here's U.S. attorney Matt Graves at a press conference on November 20th. She had a relapse, and she reached out to her old supplier who had previously caused her to overdose in November 2020.

What she got from him was a fake pill. The DEA reminds us that one pill can kill, and unfortunately from Ms. Lynch, it did. Unfortunately, Lynch's story is one that is taking place more often with the spread of black market drugs, especially fentanyl. Here's DEA administrator Anne Milgram talking to Congress about the drug's potency at a hearing earlier this year. We want everyone to understand the risk of fentanyl. It is the deadliest drug. We've ever seen widespread in the United States. It is 50 times more addictive than heroin, and just a tiny amount can kill someone. So many Americans do not know that they're taking it and they're dying.

Annual overdose deaths in the U.S. jumped 30% year to year after the onset of COVID-19, and they've continued to rise since. The problem is especially acute in Washington, D.C., where Mayor Muriel Bowser has declared a public health emergency while the district is on track for another record-breaking year of fatal overdoses. The drug crisis is being driven by illegal opioids sourced from Mexico. There's no quality control standard among Mexican drug cartels, and their illegal drugs all contain fentanyl and inconsistent amounts. That makes it very difficult to measure out exact dosage.

And when you're dealing with fentanyl, just a tiny amount can be fatal. Now, Lynch's death sparked an investigation that ultimately proved to be very significant. Tell us a little bit about that. Right. Specifically her activity on Instagram, investigators were able to trace a cross-country drug operation. So far, a total of 26 people have been charged with various drug crimes, and 23 of those are in custody. that includes two people convicted of providing the fatal dose to lynch. Larry Eastman and his older sister, Justice.

Larry was sentenced to over 11 years in prison. His sister received a three-year sentence. Here's Milgram talking about the arrests last month. DEA identified the Eastman's source of supply and the people who were responsible for transporting fentanyl from Los Angeles to D.C. Those individuals have been charged. We also identified additional distributors,

of fentanyl in Los Angeles and the people who were working to get fentanyl from Mexico into Los Angeles and ultimately to Washington, D.C. Those individuals have been charged. The EA also identified additional sources of supply and distributors in Los Angeles, in San Diego, and here in Washington, D.C. Those individuals have been charged.

Those arrested in connection with this case generally live in either California or the D.C. metro area. According to authorities, suppliers in California receive drugs from cartels in Mexico and then ship them across state lines to suppliers and dealers in the D.C. area. The breakup of this ring also involved the confiscation of a lot of contraband as well. Here's graves going through that. In this case alone, we have seized to date over 20 kilograms of fentanyl powder and approximately a quarter million pills.

We know that drug trafficking on this scale is a magnet for violence. and we have predictably also seized a large number of firearms. Over 30 firearms to date, including six machine guns. Now, how did authorities track down the suspects? Mostly through Instagram. It appears Instagram was the main channel of communication between suppliers, dealers, and consumers. Here's Milgram again.

Almost every single defendant in this case used Instagram to find their sources of supply, to find new avenues of distribution, to pick the color of the pills, the amount of pills they were ordering, and the price that they would pay. They used Instagram to coordinate shipments and to work out how they would get payment. Now, why is Instagram such an attractive platform for this, and presuming they're aware of that? Are they doing anything to address it? It's not just Instagram, but social media in general that has facilitated the illegal drug trade in the U.S. dozens of family members of people who died from illegal drugs sued Snap Inc, which owns Snapchat.

The lawsuit filed earlier this year said Snapchat's role in the drug trade was, quote, the foreseeable result of the designs, structures, and policies Snap chose to implement to increase its revenues. Snap responded with a statement that said the lawsuit was riddled with false claims and ignored Snap's efforts to crack down on illegal drug trafficking. And for its part, meta, which owns Instagram, bans drug sales on the platform. And as important as a platform was to the drug ring, it was just as important to law enforcement who tracked down the suspects. Milgram said that kind of work will be near impossible to do if more apps move to encrypted messaging. This kind of work to protect the public will become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, if social media companies implement warrant-proof end-to-end encryption that simply turns off the lights and looks the other way,

while criminals use these platforms to spread poison in our communities. Meta, the company that owns Instagram, announced just this past August that it intends to do just that. This is the unprecedented threat that we are dealing with. Now, where is the supply chain coming from? Is this all Mexico? Mostly from China and Mexico. Chinese manufacturers make what are called precursor chemicals or the ingredients used to manufacture fentanyl waste pills. The manufacturers shipped the precursors to drug labs in Mexico run by the cartels, the two most prominent cartels being the Sinaloa and Halisco.

From there, cartels use any number of smuggling routes to get their drugs into the U.S., from secret compartments and vehicles to backpacking. In 2019, the U.S. Coast Guard stopped a 40-foot-long submarine that was carrying 12,000 pounds of cocaine. So a very sophisticated operation if they're using things like submarines. It is. That haul was worth about $165 million. But fentanyl is by far the most cost efficient because it's so addictive yet so cheap to make. Here's Milgram again talking about the kind of money involved in the Lynch investigation.

Together, these individuals sent more than one million fentanyl pills over the course of a year into the Washington, D.C. area. A dealer in Los Angeles pays 30 cents wholesale for one pill and sells it for $3 wholesale to someone in Washington, D.C., who then, and sells it to Diamond Lynch for $30 a pill. The criminals are making so much money off of each sale that they don't care if they kill Americans in the process. Since authorities at this point are pretty well aware of this supply chain, what's being done to intercept these shipments? Well, each division of law enforcement typically has a unit or operation focused on organized

illegal drugs. But because the source of drugs is outside the U.S., there's only so much law enforcement can do. The Biden administration has spoken with both Mexico and China about finding a solution to part of the supply chain in their territories. There has been some headway with Mexico, but you can't have a discussion on the drug trade without also mentioning illegal immigration, which has skyrocketed at the southwest border in the past several years. The cartels control much of the border on the Mexican side, and they make money off human trafficking as well as the drug trade. As for China, so far it has been unwilling to crack down on the manufacturers within its own borders. In the meantime,

illegal drugs are killing over 100,000 Americans every year. Right, a real crisis. Tim, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce, and this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.