After Trump threatens Mexico, authorities make largest fentanyl bust in history

After President-elect Donald Trump vowed to impose tariffs on Mexico and spoke to Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, demanding that Mexico stop facilitating illegal entry into the U.S., Mexican authorities have made major drug and cartel busts.

Sheinbaum claimed they’d been working on the operation for a while, but some members of the Mexico media give the credit to Trump and have accused Sheinbaum of taking cartel bribes.

In several posts on X, Sheinbaum’s Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection, Omar García Harfuch, issued statements saying Mexican authorities seized the largest amount of fentanyl in history in the state of Sinaloa, 1,100 kilograms. With two milligrams considered a lethal dose, and 22,696.2 lethal doses in a pound, they seized more than 453 million lethal doses, enough to kill roughly the entire population of the U.S. and Mexico.

They also seized firearms and made arrests in Sinaloa, the namesake of the deadly transnational criminal organization, whose operations are based there, the Sinaloa Cartel.

“These actions will continue until the violence in the state of Sinaloa decreases,” Harfuch said.

On Thursday, he announced more arrests, saying, “Following up on the investigation into the seizure of more than a ton of fentanyl pills and with operational actions to reduce crime rates in Sinaloa, personnel from the Security Cabinet arrested Adrián ‘N’ ‘El Gallero,’ a member of a criminal group that operates in Sinaloa and is related to the drugs seized two days ago. Investigations in the state continue.”

As part of the operation, five foreign nationals were arrested on sexual exploitation charges, allegedly part of “a group dedicated to drug dealing and human trafficking” operating in Mexico and “linked to two femicides that occurred in June in Tlalpan and to regrettable acts of violence against women,” he said.

Mexican agencies conducted the busts in different parts of the capital and in other countries, he said. They include the Secretariat of Citizen Security of Mexico City, Mexico City Attorney General, Mexico City Mayor, Mexican Secretary of Defense, Mexican Navy, Mexican Attorney General, Mexican National Guard and Harfuch’s office.

After Harfuch announced the fentanyl bust, Sheinbaum held a press conference saying the investigation had “been going on for a long time, and yesterday, it gave these results.”

On Friday, Harfuch announced additional arrests were made by Mexican security forces.

“In recent days, the leader of a group that generates violence operating in Culiacán was arrested,” he said. Five men were arrested, including Horacio “N” an operator and brother of Omar “N,” he said. They also seized three long weapons and drugs and “continue to implement actions to reduce the rates of violence in the region.”

Omar “N” was arrested last month, two weeks after Trump won the election. He was wanted for “several violent actions in our country, such as homicides, arms trafficking, human trafficking and fentanyl trafficking to Arizona, United States,” Harfuch said.

Mexican reporters and pundits have raised questions about the arrests and Mexican leaders, suggesting the reason the arrests were made was because Trump was elected and Mexican leaders are on cartel payrolls.

One pundit said it wasn’t the National Palace policies but “the Trump Tsunami” behind the arrests. Ever “since he won the US presidency … Omar García Harfuch has been very busy with HISTORIC arrests and seizures of Fentanyl, never seen in the López Obrador government.”

Last month, after the U.S. Treasury Department published photos of alleged cartel members wanted and sanctioned for trafficking fentanyl, cocaine and heroin, LatinUS reporter Carlos Loret de Mola asked if Sheinbaum’s administration was “protecting them or do the Secretary of Security, the Sedena and the Navy not have the information?”

Another reporter, Anabel Hernandez, claims Mexico’s former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Sheinbaum received money from the cartels. Obrador implemented a “hugs not bullets” policy with the cartels as violence escalated under his administration. Sheinbaum was elected during one of the bloodiest elections in Mexican history with 30 candidates believed to have been assassinated by the cartels, The Center Square reported.

Hernandez said at a recent conference that she “had access to a document called, ‘Operation Polanco’ and began a journey to understand if what the United States government was saying was real or not,” La Octava reported. What she found, she says, is “that not only did Andrés Manuel López Obrador receive money from the Sinaloa Cartel in the 2006 campaign but also in the 2012 campaign.”

Hernandez says she has evidence and Sheinbaum can’t go after the Sinaloa Cartel “because she is also part of this criminal system and received money in her presidential campaign from the same two factions” warring over Sinaloa territory, the Zambadas and Chapo Guzman. “There is specific evidence, there is the testimony of the Zambada King, Jesús Zambada García, the brother of Mayo Zambada,” she said.

Obrador and Sheinbaum have denied the claims.

LatinUS has published reports alleging Sheinbaum is “acting as a real estate cartel.” Sheinbaum accuses her political rivals of the same.