Overview

• The DEA has seized about 70,000 pounds of methamphetamine through mid-July, nearly matching last year’s total and on pace to double that amount by year’s end.
• Acting DEA Administrator Robert Murphy said Mexican cartels oversee 100 percent of U.S. meth production, smuggling and distribution and funnel the proceeds back to Mexico.
• Investigators uncovered inventive concealment tactics, including meth hidden among green onions, cucumbers, celery shipments and in a charter bus septic tank.
• Law enforcement is responding to a surge in meth pressed into pills resembling Adderall and MDMA that are marketed to users who often cannot distinguish them from genuine prescriptions.
• Coordinated operations in states from South Carolina to Texas have shut down conversion labs, intercepted concealed shipments exceeding 1,700 pounds of meth and led to dozens of trafficker arrests.