BOSTON — Mexican drug organizations have been increasingly infiltrating New England over the past year, according to a new report from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
The 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment lists the increased influence of Mexican cartels in New England as one of the agency’s top priorities. The report is released to address domestic and international drug activity.
“Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States,” the report reads. “No other group is currently positioned to challenge them.”
These TCOs have expanded their share of the market, particularly in heroin and methamphetamine, across New England, the report states.
According to data, New Hampshire had the second highest number of drug overdose deaths in the country in 2015, with Rhode Island in fifth and Massachusetts in seventh.
In 2016, however, the report shows fentanyl left the largest footprint of any illicit drug in the United States. Massachusetts had the second highest number of fentanyl reports during that time with 3,911. According to the report, the northeast region had the highest occurrence of fentanyl exhibits, adding to the existing white powder heroin and opioid problems.
According to the DEA, New England-based agents seized a large fentanyl milling operation in Lawrence in August 2016, where small, portable devices were being used to package heroin and fentanyl for sale.
“Dominican drug traffickers dominate the street level distribution of heroin, cocaine and opioid pills in the Merrimack Valley,” the report states.
In the report’s key findings, the agency says the most significant shift in priorities has been from cocaine, which was considered the greatest drug threat from 2007-2010, into heroin, which has accounted for the greatest threat since then.
Notably, the report lists the threat from marijuana as “low and declining,” while linking heroin as commonly contributing to property crime in areas of prevalence and to a slightly lesser extent, violent crime.
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