The US Drug Enforcement Administration allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach the streets of New Mexico between 2023 and 2025 while it pursued larger trafficking cases, according to three current and former DEA agents and government records reviewed by The Associated Press. The issue has raised questions over a law enforcement tactic that critics said put public safety at risk during the deadliest drug crisis in US history.

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The DEA said the decisions were lawful and consistent with Justice Department guidance, while former US attorney for New Mexico Alex Uballez said the approach was part of a wider effort to build stronger cases against major traffickers. But DEA Special Agent David Howell, who filed a whistleblower complaint in 2023, told AP the agency had failed communities by watching drug shipments move without seizing them.

According to the report, DEA agents repeatedly tracked fentanyl consignments but did not always stop them as federal prosecutors tried to target larger organisations. Howell said, "We poisoned our community to make cases." He added, "Through our own willful blindness, we get to say, We don't really know what happened to the drugs. But we 100 per cent got people killed."

The report said New Mexico remains at the centre of the fentanyl crisis. While overdose deaths across the US fell 14 per cent last year, government data showed a 21 per cent rise in New Mexico. The White House had last year described fentanyl as a...

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