Fact Sheet: DHS Shows Results in the Fight to Dismantle Cartels and Stop Fentanyl from Entering the U.S.

New Actions Announced by the Biden-⁠Harris Administration Build on and Support Ongoing DHS Efforts to Keep Illicit Opioids Out of Our Communities

WASHINGTON – DHS is on the frontlines fighting against cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) that are flooding our communities with illicit synthetic drugs, like fentanyl. The Department has stopped more illicit fentanyl and arrested more individuals for fentanyl-related crimes in the last two fiscal years than in the previous five years combined. We are doing this through enforcement actions, including seizures of fentanyl and precursor chemicals, along with stopping southbound guns and money, and supporting prosecutions to prevent future illicit acts. This whole-of-DHS effort supports President Biden’s Unity Agenda and the recently announced new actions. DHS’s work is built on 1) breaking up drug cartels and disrupting illicit supply chains globally; 2) intercepting drugs and chemicals at our borders and ports of entry; 3) keeping fentanyl out of our communities through state and local partnerships; and 4) identifying and deploying new technology to fight fentanyl. We continue the effort and reiterate our call on Congress to provide more resources and authorities to bring to bear our Department’s full strength and expertise to the fight.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, DHS has:

• Arrested over 3,600 subjects connected to fentanyl seizure events, which directly hits the organized criminal networks responsible for bringing fentanyl into our communities.
• Seized over 2,200 pill presses.
• Seized over 27,000 pounds of illicit fentanyl to stop it at our borders and in our communities before it can hurt the American public. These seizures were conducted by DHS component agencies U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
  • CBP fentanyl seizures so far in FY2024 amount to 738.5 million doses.
• Initiated 5,874 narcotics-related investigations at HSI.
• Continued deploying new non-intrusive inspection (NII) technology to interdict even more fentanyl before it enters the United States and invested millions of dollars in advanced analytical solutions to include artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning to target and dismantle TCOs and their illicit supply chain.
• Engaged and partnered with state and local law enforcement through task forces, like HSI’s Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST), which eliminate the barriers between federal and local investigations (access to both federal and state prosecutors) and improve international partners in multinational criminal investigations.

Building on these efforts, today the Biden-Harris Administration is seeking legislation in Congress to increase penalties on those who bring deadly drugs into our communities and close loopholes that drug traffickers exploit.

• The Biden-Harris “Detect and Defeat” Counter-Fentanyl legislative proposal would give border officials the tools they need to more effectively track and target the millions of small-dollar shipments that cross our borders – closing a loophole that drug traffickers exploit.
  • The legislative proposal would help DHS, and particularly CBP, effectively go after the abuse of “de minimis” shipments, some 4 million low-value shipments every day that are currently subject to less rigorous reporting requirements than higher value shipments. CBP would be granted the authority to demand additional documentation and other information about de minimis packages and would impose a corresponding penalty on violators. The change would enable customs officials to more effectively analyze risk, identify patterns of concern, and take action against those who try to abuse our system. The legislation would also add a user fee for de minimis packages to help pay for the staff and equipment needed to better identify, and seize, illicit fentanyl being shipped in small packages into our country.
• It would establish a registry of pill presses and tableting machines so that our law enforcement officials can keep track of these machines and take action against their illegitimate use.
  • Beyond serializing and tracking pill presses, industry partners would be empowered to identify and report suspicious behavior. The legislative proposal also includes reinstating subpoena authority to investigate suspicious packages.
• It would permanently regulate fentanyl-related substances as “Schedule I” drugs – subjecting the distribution and possession of these drugs to heightened penalties– and would also increase penalties on those who unlawfully manufacture and distribute precursor chemicals and associated machinery.

The National Security Memorandum (NSM) asks federal departments and agencies to do even more than they are already doing to stop the supply of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids in our country. DHS and our partners across the Administration continue to build on and accelerate efforts to detect and seize illicit drugs and hold drug traffickers accountable.

The enforcement data for the first three quarters of FY2024 reflects a fraction of the whole-of-DHS effort already underway. Through capacity building -- including harnessing new technologies, increasing state, local, and international partnerships, and consistently developing new techniques and tactics, DHS will continue to build on this progress.

Breaking up drug cartels and supply chains globally. DHS is supporting the federal effort to combat fentanyl internationally, through information-sharing, multinational enforcement operations, and global cooperation and partnerships.

• Over the past three years, DHS has focused not just on illicit fentanyl. but the tools and materials TCOs use to make it. We are interdicting and seizing precursor chemicals, pill press machines, die molds, and pill press parts used in the manufacturing process. We are targeting pill press supply chains, pill press brokers, TCOs and U.S. recipients who are producing and moving fentanyl, and the money launderers who help facilitate this illicit trade.
  • In April 2024, CBP launched Operation Plaza Spike to target plaza bosses and cartels that facilitate the flow of deadly fentanyl, as well as its analogs, precursors, and tools to make dangerous drugs. Plaza bosses are Cartel operatives who supervise and control the flow of illicit products in their specific geographic corridors. On July 18, 2024, CBP expanded the operation to El Paso and Juarez.
  • In June 2024, HSI indicted 47 alleged members of an Imperial Valley-based, Sinaloa Cartel-linked fentanyl distribution network; and in July, HSI helped execute the arrest on U.S. soil of the de facto head of the Sinaloa Cartel. 
  • The CBP Strategy to Combat Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Drugs, released in October 2023, aligns resources, partnerships, intelligence collection, and lessons learned from CBP’s success this year. It complements the HSI Strategy for Combating Illicit Opioids, released in September 2023, an intelligence-driven approach that leverages HSI’s extensive expertise in investigating cross-border criminal activity and its unique access to customs and financial data.
• Under President Biden’s leadership, the United States is attacking the epidemic at every level, including where it often starts, with China-based entities that manufacture and distribute the chemicals used to make the fentanyl that is fueling American overdose deaths. The Administration has stepped up counternarcotics cooperation with key government partners across America and around the world, including China, India, as well as Mexico, and Canada – and launched the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, which unites more than 140 countries in the fight against drug trafficking cartels and illicit finance. DHS participates in that and participated in the National Security Council-led launch of a new Counternarcotics Working Group with China to disrupt the manufacture and flow of illicit synthetic drugs, delivering on the commitments made during President Biden’s meeting with President Xi in November 2023. DHS also contributes to the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee with the Governments of Mexico and Canada.
• DHS helps partners in the Western Hemisphere and Asia build their own capacity.
  • Transnational Criminal Investigative Units: HSI partners with vetted foreign law enforcement officials and prosecutors in Transnational Criminal Investigative Units (TCIUs), which support investigations and prosecutions abroad. HSI has established 16 TCIUs worldwide. In FY 2023, efforts by the Mexico TCIU resulted in the seizure of 64,138 pounds of precursor chemicals and more than 59 criminal arrests.
  • Information Sharing: We are working with shippers to provide more data to CBP. The Section 321 Data Pilot helps us work more closely with non-traditional trade partners to identify and interdict illicit shipments in small packages, without inhibiting cross-border e-commerce.

Intercepting drugs and chemicals at our borders and ports of entry. DHS personnel is on the front lines to detect and prevent fentanyl and its precursor chemicals from flowing into our country.

• More than 90% of interdicted fentanyl is stopped at Ports of Entry (POEs) where cartels attempt to smuggle it primarily in vehicles driven by U.S. citizens. CBP and HSI throughout the past two years have run operations that mobilized hundreds of personnel – special agents, CBP officers, import specialists, and intelligence analysts – through surges and deployments at Southwest Border POEs, airports, express consignment facilities, international mail facilities, container stations, and warehouses across the country.
  • Launched in October 2023, Operation Apollo is a CBP counter-fentanyl operation that disrupts drug and chemical supplies, collects and shares intelligence, and leverages valuable state and local law enforcement partnerships in southern California. In the last two weeks, CBP announced Operation Apollo X to expand that collaboration to El Paso, Texas.
• Other recent operations include:
  • Operation Blue Lotus, launched in March 2023, surged CBP and HSI resources to Southwest Border POEs and worked with state, local, Tribal, and territorial partners to expose networks. Operation Four Horsemen was a complementary United States Border Patrol (USBP) operation to stop fentanyl between POEs and at checkpoints near the border. As a result of these two operations, DHS seized nearly 10,000 pounds of fentanyl, and more than 10,000 pounds of other narcotics like cocaine and methamphetamines.
  • CBP’s Operation Artemis, supported by HSI, targeted the illicit fentanyl supply chain, leveraging multidisciplined interagency “jump teams” at strategic locations. The four months Operation Artemis led to over 900 seizures, including over 13,000 pounds of fentanyl precursor chemicals.
  • Operation Rolling Wave surged inbound inspections at Southwest Border checkpoints, covering every sector and employing predictive analysis and intelligence sharing.

Keeping fentanyl out of our communities. DHS is partnering with federal, state, and local stakeholders to share information and track and disrupt fentanyl networks within our communities.

• DHS is a department of partnerships, and sharing information with state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement and community partners is fundamental to our work. State, local, tribal, territorial, and international law enforcement are also in integral part of the success of DHS task forces, most significantly HSI’s Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST). The primary mission of HSI’s BEST is to combat emerging and existing TCOs by employing the full range of federal, state, local, tribal, and international law enforcement authorities and resources in the fight to identify, investigate, disrupt, and dismantle these organizations at every level of operation. BESTs eliminate the barriers between federal and local investigations (access to both federal and state prosecutors) and close the gap with international partners in multinational criminal investigations.
• State, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement also support efforts to disrupt TCOs by nominating individuals to the Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) watchlist through DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). The TOC watchlist, maintained by the FBI, is a list of individuals known or reasonably suspected to be involved in transnational organized crime.

Identifying and deploying new technology to fight fentanyl. DHS is working on developing new technology to support better detection and apprehension of synthetic drugs and their precursors.

• The President has prioritized deploying cutting-edge drug detection technology across our southwest border and continues to call on Congress to pass the bipartisan border bill, which would deliver 100 more high-tech drug detection machines that could scan 20 times as many vehicles to stop fentanyl from crossing our border.
• Non-Intrusive Inspection: We are dramatically expanding non-intrusive inspection (NII) technology at our southwest border to screen and detect not only drugs, but also currency, guns, ammunition, and illegal merchandise, as well as people being smuggled or trafficked into the country, while minimally impacting the flow of legitimate travel and commerce. By installing 123 new large-scale scanners at multiple POEs along the southwest border, CBP will increase its inspection capacity of passenger vehicles from two percent to 40 percent, and of cargo vehicles from 17 percent to 70 percent.
• Forward Operating Laboratories: CBP is operating 16 Forward Operating Laboratories to provide onsite, rapid testing for fentanyl to frontline personnel. A process that once would have taken weeks now takes seconds for quicker law enforcement actions, prosecutions, and intelligence collection.
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Ports of Entry: CBP is innovating with the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence at our POEs. This year alone, machine learning models that help CBP Officers determine which suspicious vehicles and passengers to refer to secondary screening have led to 240 seizures, which include thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl.
• HSI Strategic Network Dismantlement Project: HSI is using Artificial Intelligence to illuminate fentanyl networks, known and unknown to authorities, operating throughout the U.S. and abroad. The HSI Strategic Network Dismantlement Project partners data engineers and data scientists with HSI investigators who leverage the HSI-owned RAVEN platform to analyze raw data, derive meaningful investigative insights, and enable disruptions of the global fentanyl supply chain.
• HSI Innovation Lab: HSI is utilizing the HSI Innovation Lab to provide data analytics and cutting-edge technologies (machine learning and artificial intelligence) to combat fentanyl.