Local DEA Chief Says Drug Cartels Doing ‘Anything and Everything’ to Smuggle Drugs Across Southern Border

Houston Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent in Charge Daniel Comeaux says that the cartels operating south of the U.S.-Mexico border will continue to do everything in their power to get drugs into American communities, he told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview.

“Look, everyone needs to understand drug cartels are vicious, they’re violent and it’s all about the dollar bill. It doesn’t matter if it’s 2021 or 2020 or 2016, drug cartels are going to get their drugs across our border,” Comeaux said.

“They’re going to do everything and anything they can do to get their drugs across our border and that’s what they’re doing no matter what,” he added.

There were 92,183 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2020, which is the highest annual number of overdose deaths on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Comeaux linked the latest increase in overdose deaths in the U.S. to the cartels and their manufacturing of synthetic drugs in Mexico.

“They don’t care about what’s going on in America, all they care about is the dollar bill and figuring out how to get their drugs across the border. And that’s the unfortunate thing. We battle every day to stop that for America,” he said.

The Houston DEA office controls 645 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border but Comeaux says the drugs smuggled across the border are headed even further north.

Fentanyl was the primary driver of overdose deaths caused by synthetic drugs in the U.S. in 2020, the DEA told the DCNF. Officials at the border seized a record 1,060 pounds of fentanyl in June, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  

“Every cartel has their drug routes and their methods of trying to get it all the way up to the east coast to the Midwest and off to the west,” Comeaux explained.

“It’s our job to stop it and we do a very good job at stopping it. Unfortunately, it’s just so much you can’t stop everything. It’s not a perfect system, it’s not a perfect world, but we do a very good job at seizing drugs, at trying to protect the American people, but, unfortunately, people are clever and they come up with new ways and new strategies every day to beat us and we catch up and we stop it,” he said.