New Mexico Governor Demands Criminal Probe of DEA Over Fentanyl Shipments Allowed to Reach Streets
Key Insights
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called for a criminal investigation into the DEA after an AP investigation revealed agents allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach streets between 2023 and 2025.
Current and former DEA agents said the strategy may have violated Justice Department rules, with the White House having designated fentanyl a "weapon of mass destruction."
While U.S. overdose deaths fell 14% nationally last year, New Mexico recorded a 21% spike in fatalities, though no direct link to the DEA's strategy has been established.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday called for a criminal investigation into the Drug Enforcement Administration (search) following an Associated Press investigation that found federal agents allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach the streets over a two-year period while pursuing larger drug-trafficking cases.
The governor asked the state's attorney general to examine whether the agency's actions violated New Mexico law, marking an extraordinary challenge to a federal law enforcement agency at a time when fentanyl remains one of the country's deadliest public health threats.
"There are no words to describe how reckless and dangerous these decisions were," Lujan Grisham said in a statement. "Make no mistake: the DEA knew people would die if these pills made it into New Mexico communities, and the agency let it happen anyway."
The AP Investigation's Findings
The AP investigation, which cited three current and former agents and government records, found that DEA agents repeatedly allowed major fentanyl shipments to continue moving through New Mexico between 2023 and 2025 rather than seize them immediately. Agents sought to build cases against higher-ranking traffickers by allowing shipments to proceed.
One internal report documented a 2023 delivery of 74,000 pills that the DEA surveilled but did not seize at a mobile home park in Albuquerque. Current and former DEA agents told the AP that the strategy amounted to a gamble with public safety in a state ravaged by the fentanyl epidemic and may have violated U.S. Justice Department rules intended to safeguard the public from a drug the White House last year designated as a "weapon of mass destruction."
DEA's Response
The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the governor's statement. The agency has previously contended that it would not be plausible to seize every drug shipment.
"Public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts," DEA spokesperson Amanda Wozniak wrote in an email. The agency stated that "the investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances and consistent with Department guidance."
Alex Uballez, who served as U.S. attorney in New Mexico from May 2022 until February 2025, told the AP that drugs went unseized at times due to his office's limited resources and his belief that prosecuting larger organizations has a bigger impact than intercepting every suspected drug transaction.
Overdose Deaths and Public Health Impact
It remains unclear whether any fatal overdoses in the state can be directly attributed to the DEA strategy. While overdose deaths nationwide fell 14% last year, government data show New Mexico tallied a 21% spike in fatalities.
"New Mexican lives are not the federal government's cost of doing business," the governor wrote in her statement. "I plan to hold the federal government accountable for this disaster and will explore every possible avenue of action against the federal government to right these wrongs."
Whistleblower and Congressional Response
DEA whistleblower David Howell, who filed a complaint drawing attention to the unseized fentanyl, spoke Wednesday with congressional staffers. Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group representing Howell, has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General to investigate the agent's allegations.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, called Howell's revelations "a scandal of the highest order" and said in a post on X that he plans to find out how many American lives were lost due to the DEA's inaction.
Victims groups also spoke out about the DEA's approach, saying it contradicts the agency's prominent "One Pill Can Kill" campaign that warns as little as a few milligrams of fentanyl can cause a fatal overdose.
"Knowing the Justice Department had guidelines to seize the opioids whenever practical — and the fact these were ignored — is truly heartbreaking," said Michael Glownia, who lost his daughter to fentanyl in 2023 and founded a nonprofit organization to support families suffering similar losses.