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NPR’s Juana Summers speaks with AP reporter Jim Mustian, whose investigation found that federal drug agents allowed colossal portions of fentanyl onto Original Mexico streets in expose to expand conditions.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

In an investigation of unlawful drug trafficking, officers could well presumably let some drug deals plow through to rep intelligence, per chance derive closer to the kingpin. Nevertheless if the drug is fentanyl, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration warns it’s miles uniquely harmful.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It most productive takes one. One try, one capsule, one mistake can murder.

SUMMERS: A public security campaign warns that proper 2 milligrams are ample to murder an adult. Yet, an Associated Press investigation found that from 2023 to 2025, the DEA let a complete bunch of thousands of fentanyl tablets hit the streets in Original Mexico in expose to electrify larger federal prosecutions. With out a doubt one of the AP newshounds within the back of that chronicle is Jim Mustian. He is with us now. Hi there.

JIM MUSTIAN: Hi. How are you?

SUMMERS: I am smartly. Jim, proper launch by telling us – how did it work? The federal agents followed these transactions nonetheless then within the slay didn’t take the product?

MUSTIAN: Yeah. I feel one of the things that’s genuinely considerable became the stage of detail in monitoring these tablets. So we highlighted on this document a case from June of 2023, where the DEA monitored the cargo of 74,000 fentanyl tablets to a mobile home park in Albuquerque. And if so alone, we counted extra than a dozen agents who were listening over a Title III wiretap in real time, tracing the telephones and geolocations of the sellers and, in some cases, even staring at from a DEA plane. Essentially the most straightforward thing that became lacking on this investigation became the seizure of the tablets.

SUMMERS: And your sources, what did they convey about this idea? Had been they excessive of it?

MUSTIAN: Completely. The whistleblower I spoke with, David Howell, surely has had his profession upended. So he’s been with the DEA 19 years on the front lines of the drug battle and genuinely proper saw too necessary and proper acknowledged, I will no longer countenance this.

SUMMERS: And what enjoy you heard from the DEA? What enjoy they acknowledged about your reporting?

MUSTIAN: They issued an announcement that every denied fentanyl had been, quote, “walked” – allowed to circulation into these communities intentionally – nonetheless moreover perceived to protect the actions on the identical time, announcing that whatever it became that they did enact, it became realistic below the conditions and allowable below Justice Division guidelines. Nevertheless, indeed, those guidelines changed within the center of all this.

When Howell came forward, there became an inner playbook. The suggestions acknowledged that agents wished to take fentanyl every time practicable, became the be aware that became veteran. And a transient time after Howell came forward and raised this grief, the DOJ extra or less moved the goalpost a shrimp bit bit – rewrote the foundations to allow necessary extra discretion for law enforcement officers. In actuality, there would possibly perchance be a field here about what law enforcement other folks name burning the wire, meaning compromising an ongoing investigation.

SUMMERS: I imply, one thing that seems a shrimp bit tricky about all of this that I could well presumably love to query you about is are you able to surely connect any recount loss of life to a given cargo of unlawful fentanyl that hits the streets?

MUSTIAN: I am no longer decided that’s forensically that which that you simply can well imagine at this level. There’s conditions that the whistleblower, David Howell, has flagged and flagged internally as portion of his whistleblower disclosures. There became a toddler in Espanola, Original Mexico, who became tragically killed – ingested some fentanyl that had been on some foil there. He became noticing conditions love this and announcing, smartly, we walked 100,000 fentanyl tablets final week. How will we influence decided? And we surely can no longer influence decided. To hear the whistleblower, David Howell, repeat it, the DEA proper can no longer know and doesn’t favor to know whether or no longer any individual became killed thanks to this.

SUMMERS: And since your preliminary reporting became printed, produce other agents advance forward with extra data?

MUSTIAN: David Howell’s disclosures, from what I’ve gathered, enjoy emboldened some of us to talk out about what they’ve viewed. About a week sooner than publishing this chronicle, I reached every other outmoded DEA agent – surely, somebody who’d been a supervisor – and, , had this moment where I became proper placing the playing cards on the desk, announcing, witness, this is what we enjoy now heard from this man. And then, , I hear a pause on the discontinue of the highway, and he says I influence no longer know, Jim. I influence no longer think you’ve got gotten the honest chronicle. And I acknowledged, what enact you imply? And he says it be so necessary worse than what you are describing.

SUMMERS: We enjoy been speaking with Jim Mustian, reporter for the Associated Press. Thanks for sharing your reporting.

MUSTIAN: Thanks for having me.

SUMMERS: After we talked, the DEA announced it has requested an goal review of DEA actions from the inspector overall of the Justice Division. Individually, Original Mexico’s governor moreover announced a teach investigation. The DEA beforehand educated the AP that its agents’ actions were appropriate.

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