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New Mexico’s attorney general on Friday opened a criminal investigation to determine whether U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents broke state law by allowing hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach the streets of Albuquerque.
The extraordinary inquiry comes less than a week after The Associated Press reported that DEA agents repeatedly monitored — but did not seize — shipments of the synthetic opioid in a bid to build bigger criminal cases between 2023 and 2025.
Current and former DEA agents, including whistleblower David Howell, told AP the strategy amounted to a gamble with public safety and may have violated U.S. Justice Department rules intended to safeguard the public.
The fentanyl went unseized amid the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history and as the DEA led a public awareness campaign — “One Pill Can Kill” — emphasizing that even a few milligrams of the substance can be lethal.
The criminal investigation turns a debate over enforcement tactics into a question of whether federal agents crossed legal lines while pursuing larger trafficking organizations.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, said federal agents “are not above the law,” but they enjoy substantial legal protections when carrying out official duties.
Still, Torrez said he would start “demanding documents and information about the DEA’s conduct, in New Mexico and nationally, to determine whether what occurred here reflects a broader pattern of reckless or unlawful behavior.”
“If those allegations are accurate, the consequences for New Mexicans were not abstract. They were fatal,” Torrez wrote in a letter to Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who earlier this week called for the inquiry.
“New Mexico already ranks among the states hardest hit by fentanyl overdose deaths,” he added, “and the families who have lost children, siblings and parents to this crisis deserve a full accounting of what the federal government knew, what it did and what it failed to do.”
The DEA initially denied Howell’s allegations in a statement to AP. But the agency later called upon the Justice Department’s independent watchdog to conduct its own investigation.
“Should that review identify areas of improvement, the DEA will of course implement changes to better their practices,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “We welcome a partnership with Governor Lujan Grisham, as well as New Mexico state and local leaders, to fight the scourge of fentanyl and keep her constituents safe.”
A growing number of local and state leaders in New Mexico have expressed outrage in the wake of Howell’s allegations. But those sentiments are not widely held by family members of overdose victims, said Paul E. Martin, founder of United Against Fentanyl, a nonprofit organization fighting the epidemic that represents 5,000 family members of victims.
“Law enforcement makes mistakes,” Martin said. “But the DEA are the men and women putting their lives on the line. Their entire business is the removal of illegal and toxic drugs from our streets.”
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The federal Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday asked the U.S. Justice Department’s internal watchdog to investigate a whistleblower’s claims that DEA agents permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to hit the streets of New Mexico.
The request came days after an Associated Press investigation found agents repeatedly monitored — but did not seize — major shipments of the synthetic opioid in a bid to build bigger criminal cases between 2023 and 2025.
In a letter sent Thursday to the U.S. Justice Department’s Inspector General, DEA administrator Terry Cole wrote that an internal probe was necessary because “the allegations have generated significant public attention and have raised questions regarding DEA’s operational decisions, supervisory oversight, and response to concerns.”
Cole wrote in a public statement that his request “should not be interpreted as reflecting any lack of confidence in the professionalism or integrity of DEA personnel or in the investigative decisions made during this matter.”
“If improvements are identified, DEA will implement them,” he added. “Strong institutions are sustained — not diminished — by objective oversight and a willingness to continuously assess and improve.”
Current and former DEA agents told the AP the investigative strategy — known as letting the counterfeit painkillers “walk” — amounted to a gamble with public safety in a state ravaged by the fentanyl epidemic and may have violated Justice Department rules intended to safeguard communities from a drug the White House last year designated as a “ weapon of mass destruction.”
The AP investigation cited three current and former agents and government records, including an internal report of a 2023 delivery of 74,000 pills the DEA watched happen at a mobile home park in Albuquerque. One of those agents, David Howell, first raised serious concerns about this strategy in a 2023 whistleblower complaint. He continued to raise his objections internally and spoke at length with the AP about what he described as a strategy that “poisoned our community to make cases.”
In an earlier statement to AP, a DEA spokesperson said “public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts.”
The DEA’s request for the watchdog investigation came just a day after New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham asked the state’s attorney general to examine whether the agency’s actions violated New Mexico law, 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 Justice Department said in a statement that it welcomes a partnership with New Mexico leaders to keep the state safe.
“Protecting the public requires more than addressing individual transactions as they occur,” the statement said. “It requires identifying the sources of supply, the individuals directing criminal activity and the organizations responsible for moving dangerous drugs into our communities.”
Democratic lawmakers in New Mexico, meanwhile, sent Cole a letter asking for a briefing on the DEA’s tactics in the state.
“New Mexicans are paying the price for a fentanyl epidemic that is tearing families apart and deserve answers,” U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury said in a statement. “At a time when overdose deaths continue to devastate our state and communities, the DEA should be focused on stopping these drugs before they reach our streets — period.”
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Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
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