Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to list Oregon as the 4th state involved in the operation.
(The Hill) — Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday touted the “largest fentanyl bust in our nation’s history” a coordinated takedown spanning five states that recovered 11.5 kilos of fentanyl, including about 3 million fentanyl-laced pills labeled as oxycodone that led to the arrests of multiple people tied to the violent Mexican Sinaloa cartel.
“It marks the most significant victory in our nation’s fight against fentanyl and drug trafficking to date,” Bondi said during a news conference, adding that the sweeping effort “targeted one of the largest and most dangerous drug trafficking and foreign terrorist organizations in our country.”
The alleged drug trafficking operation spanned across New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Oregon, and the multi-agency investigation began with undercover operations and surveillance six months ago, authorities said. In addition to the fentanyl haul, officers said they recovered 35 kilos of methamphetamine, 7.5 kilos of cocaine, 4.5 kilos of heroin, and 49 rifles and pistols.
“This was an incredible operation,” Bondi said. “It took months and months of work … to get this massive amount of drugs and guns off our streets.”
The alleged leader of the drug ring, Heriberto Salazar Amaya, was arrested in Oregon. At least six of the people arrested in the drug bust were in the country illegally, Bondi noted, but she isn’t calling for them to be deported.
“They need to serve their time in an American prison to keep them off the streets, who knows where they would go next,” Bondi told reporters. “They’re facing a substantial amount of time in prison, and there’s a very big risk, we all know, releasing someone, especially to Mexico.”
“Sending them back to Mexico to continue on with their drug business isn’t going to happen under this administration,” she added.
Rob Murphy, principal deputy administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), highlighted the work of investigators and undercover agents working together across states to take down an enterprise that had been “operating in the United States with no regard at all for the disruption to families, addiction and ultimately death that was probably caused.”
Murphy said he expects more arrests and noted the drugs came from the cartel in Mexico that President Trump included on a list of designated terrorist organizations earlier this year.
“This team was able to infiltrate the organization at every level. We knew how the drugs were being brought into the U.S.,” Murphy said. “We’re exploiting them at every level we continue to do that.”
Trump has made targeting Latin American gangs, undocumented immigrants and the fentanyl crisis signature issues for his second term. He told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday that he believes drug cartels are “trying to destroy our country.”
“They are horrible people that have been killing people left and right and have been they’ve made a fortune on selling drugs and destroying our people,” the president said.
Bondi was mocked last week after she told Trump during a cabinet meeting that fentanyl seizures in the first 100 days of his second term had “saved … 258 million lives,” which fact-checkers noted would be about 75 percent of the U.S. population.
