Narcotics Crisis

The cartels make heroin and methamphetamine using chemicals produced in Mexico by U.S. companies, and then send the drugs to America

- Cam Simpson, Michael Smith, and Nacha Cattan

MADE IN MEXICO WITH U.S. INGREDIENTS

Making their way down a narrow country road in the Mexican state of Sinaloa one morning in May 2019, members of a counter-narcotics squad were struck by a strong chemical smell. They pulled over, and a small reconnaissance team climbed out of their vehicles, then stalked down a trail. Behind a thicket of trees, tucked in a clearing, they found an open-air drug factory—not a huge surprise in Sinaloa, the capital of the global narcotics empire built by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Five cauldrons for cooking heroin stood exposed to the sky, flaked with rust. In the camp’s makeshift living quarters, bags of tortilla chips and a cooler of unopened Pepsis suggested the cooks had left in haste.

The soldiers discovered the source of the smell: acetic anhydride, a clear liquid that reeks like vinegar. Except for the sap drained from opium flowers, it’s the only thing truly required to make heroin, and it doesn’t take much of the stuff to do the job. Soldiers found some inside four 18-liter jugs that, when full, could have produced 80 pounds of high- quality “China white,” with a U.S. street value of at least $3.6 million.