We had just walked into the fentanyl lab when the cook poured a white powder into a stockpot full of liquid. He began mixing it with an immersion blender and fumes rose from the pot, filling the small kitchen.
We wore gas masks and hazmat suits, but the cook had on only a surgical mask. He and his partner had rushed here to fulfill an order for 10 kilograms of fentanyl. While one sniff of the toxic chemicals could kill us, they explained, they had built up a tolerance to the lethal drug.
But then, the cook jerked back.
“It really hit me,” he said, looking dazed. “I need to take a breather.”
The young man rushed out of the room.
In September, a war broke out within Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. Fighting between the rival factions has terrorized the northwestern state of Sinaloa in the months since, leaving hundreds dead and causing a billion dollars in economic damage, business leaders say. The Mexican government responded by sending in a swarm of soldiers and making a slew of arrests.
After President-elect Donald J. Trump threatened tariffs if the country didn’t stop drugs from crossing the border, Mexico’s security forces announced their largest seizure of fentanyl ever this month: 20 million doses of the drug.
Criminal groups have had to adjust to the new conditions on the ground. Fearing law enforcement raids or attacks by their rivals, they say they’re moving their labs around more often than usual and producing drugs in new locations.
And yet, even in the middle of all-out war and intense government pressure, Mexico’s cartels are still doing a swift business in fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Each year in the United States, synthetic opioids are involved in tens of thousands of overdose deaths, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
We — two New York Times reporters and one photographer — had been trying for months to get access to a fentanyl lab run by the Sinaloa cartel, which the U.S. government says is responsible for much of the product flooding into the United States. But every time we thought we were getting close, some unforeseen outburst of violence derailed our plans.
When we came to the capital city of Culiacán in September, a van appeared on the side of a road with at least five bodies inside. No one at the scene knew which faction of the cartel the men had belonged to or who had killed them. That night, we heard shots right outside our hotel — the discovery of the bodies had apparently prompted gun battles between the rival groups. It was too unsafe to get into the lab.
The second try was scuttled because of clashes between security forces and cartel gunmen; the third because of an incursion by one group that left several houses burned out. We saw a demonstration of fentanyl being made in a cartel safe house but could not get into the location where the cooks produced larger batches.
Then, on our fourth try, we finally got in.
The lab was hidden in a house right in the city center in Culiacán, on a bustling street full of pedestrians, cars and food stands. There were no smells or fumes outside that would have alerted a passer-by to the large quantities of fentanyl being cooked behind the door.
It was dark inside save for a room at the very back, which lit up in bright red flames as soon as we arrived. Two men hustled to put out the fire coming from a pot on the stove, surrounded by smoke that had a reddish tint.
After a few minutes, they emerged triumphant and apologetic: A chemical reaction had caused a small explosion, explained the main cook, a 26-year-old wearing a navy shirt and slacks.
We gained access thanks to one of our contacts, who knew a drug trafficker who did business with the cooks. The contact convinced the men that we would not reveal their identities or the lab’s location. The men said they risked deadly reprisals by talking to reporters, and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The main cook and his partner shook our hands. Their boss, a middle-aged man hovering nearby, allowed us to take one phone and one camera inside. They warned us to be ready for law enforcement to appear at any moment.
“They busted in on us this morning,” the boss said. Earlier that day, he explained, the Mexican military had raided one of his crew’s labs, which forced them to bring their material to this makeshift site.
“If they bust in here, you can stay, but hit the floor,” the main cook told us. “We’re running.”
After putting on gas masks, hazmat suits and gloves, we went into the kitchen.
On a round side table near the doorway, illuminated by a fluorescent lamp, was a pile of white powder that the men told us was finished fentanyl. It looked to be more than a pound — most likely enough for more than 200,000 doses.
The countertop was dotted with half-empty Corona bottles and metal containers with chemicals. On one tray lay a small mountain of crystal flakes that the main cook said was sodium hydroxide, a fentanyl ingredient.
The men were leaning over two large saucepans sitting on burners that had been set to medium low. They said they were at the first stage of the process, activating the main chemical ingredient they use to make fentanyl. There was one small window and a plastic floor fan for ventilation.
Normally, the cooks wear gas masks while making fentanyl, to protect against toxic exposure to chemicals. But in their scramble to restart the process after the military raid, they had time only to find cloth or surgical masks, they said. That’s why the main cook’s partner had to run out of the room when fumes started permeating the air.
He came back, cigarette in hand, and handed the main cook acetone, another chemical ingredient for fentanyl that was sitting in the kitchen pantry next to a bottle of hot sauce. On a wall nearby hung a print of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper.”
The main cook had started working for the cartel at 16, he said, cooking methamphetamine and later fentanyl. While teaching himself how to run a drug lab, he stayed in school, studying oral medicine. The would-be dentist never took up the trade.
In the years since fentanyl took off in the United States, he said, he has made millions of dollars running several drug labs. Two U.S. Embassy officials who monitor fentanyl production said these earnings were expected for someone at the main cook’s level in the criminal organization.
He said he bought himself sports cars, houses and ranches. His crew acquired a helicopter and a small plane, he said. He blamed Americans for the overdose epidemic, saying that users were the ones deciding to take such a lethal drug. He snorted in disbelief when asked whether pressure from the United States or his own Mexican government would put an end to the fentanyl industrial complex.
“This is what makes us rich,” he said. “Drug trafficking is the main economy here.”
Putting on gloves, he dipped his hand into a bucket full of fentanyl powder and began to massage in blue dye. He was mixing in the colorant, he said, because this material would soon be pressed into pills and eventually sold to American users.
His crew takes orders from cartel traffickers in Mexico, who then package the goods and send them across the border. He has the equipment to stamp each tablet with whatever design the client wants, showing us a pill with a crown in the style of the Rolex insignia.
He expertly worked his fingers through the bucket of now-neon blue drugs, breaking up clumps that had the consistency of pastry dough. The cook compared it with making flour tortillas.
Then his partner appeared at the doorway and signaled to him, with a throat-slitting gesture, to shut the kitchen down. Members of the crew had received information from a lookout that a Mexican military patrol was too close, and they needed to move.
“We have to go,” said the main cook, turning off the stove and heading for the exit. “We have to run.”
After peeling off our protective gear and grabbing our phones, we ran out of the house, too.
The post ‘This Is What Makes Us Rich’: Inside a Sinaloa Cartel Fentanyl Lab appeared first on New York Times.
