- Feb 22, 2017
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They estimate that over the previous two years, the gray-bearded courier had ferried about 7,000 kilos of fentanyl-making chemicals to an operative of the Sinaloa Cartel. That’s 15,432 pounds, sufficient to produce 5.3 billion pills – enough to kill every living soul in the United States several times over. The chemicals had traveled by air from China to Los Angeles, were flown or ground-shipped to Tucson, then driven the last miles to Mexico by the freelance delivery driver.
Even more astonishing is what fed this circuitous route: a few paragraphs buried in a 2016 U.S. trade law supported by major parcel carriers and e-commerce platforms that made it easier for imported goods, including those fentanyl ingredients, to enter the United States.
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So is an immutable aspect of international trade: Transporting goods is largely an honor system that’s easy for bad actors to exploit. Senders are supposed to tell the truth about what’s inside the boxes they export. But shipping documents are easy to falsify, and contraband fairly simple to camouflage. Authorities can’t inspect every box without bringing global commerce to a halt.
The last sentence is at heart what the problem is. We will never be able to search every box and package.
It is a long article but well worth your time if you want to know what is really happening and why.
