JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In an investigation of illegal drug trafficking, officials might let some drug deals go through to gather intelligence, maybe get closer to the kingpin. But if the drug is fentanyl, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration warns it is uniquely dangerous.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It only takes one. One try, one pill, one mistake can kill.
SUMMERS: A public safety campaign warns that just 2 milligrams are enough to kill an adult. Yet, an Associated Press investigation found that from 2023 to 2025, the DEA let hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills hit the streets in New Mexico in order to build bigger federal prosecutions. One of the AP reporters behind that story is Jim Mustian. He's with us now. Hi there.
JIM MUSTIAN: Hi. How are you?
SUMMERS: I'm well. Jim, just start by telling us - how did it work? The federal agents followed these transactions but then ultimately didn't seize the product?
MUSTIAN: Yeah. I think one of the things that's really notable was the level of detail in tracking these drugs. So we highlighted in this report a case from June of 2023, where the DEA monitored the shipment of 74,000 fentanyl pills to a mobile home park in Albuquerque. And in that case alone, we counted more than a dozen agents who were listening over a Title III wiretap in real time, tracing the phones and geolocations of the dealers and, in some instances, even watching from a DEA plane. The only thing that was missing in this investigation was the seizure of the drugs.
SUMMERS: And your sources, what did they say about this plan? Were they critical of it?
MUSTIAN: Absolutely. The whistleblower I spoke with, David Howell, essentially has had his career upended. So he's been with the DEA 19 years on the front lines of the drug war and really just saw too much and just said, I can't countenance this.
SUMMERS: And what have you heard from the DEA? What have they said about your reporting?
MUSTIAN: They issued a statement that both denied fentanyl had been, quote, "walked" - allowed to go into these communities intentionally - but also seemed to defend the actions at the same time, saying that whatever it was that they did do, it was reasonable under the circumstances and allowable under Justice Department guidelines. But, indeed, those guidelines changed in the middle of all this.
When Howell came forward, there was an internal playbook. The rules said that agents needed to seize fentanyl whenever practicable, was the word that was used. And a short time after Howell came forward and raised this issue, the DOJ kind of moved the goalpost a little bit - rewrote the rules to allow much more discretion for law enforcement officers. Really, there's a concern here about what law enforcement people call burning the wire, which means compromising an ongoing investigation.
SUMMERS: I mean, one thing that seems a bit tricky about all of this that I'd like to ask you about is can you actually connect any specific death to a given shipment of illegal fentanyl that hits the streets?
MUSTIAN: I'm not sure that's forensically possible at this point. There's cases that the whistleblower, David Howell, has flagged and flagged internally as part of his whistleblower disclosures. There was a toddler in Espanola, New Mexico, who was tragically killed - ingested some fentanyl that had been on some foil there. He was noticing cases like this and saying, well, we walked 100,000 fentanyl pills last week. How can we be sure? And we actually can't be sure. To hear the whistleblower, David Howell, tell it, the DEA just can't know and doesn't want to know whether anyone was killed because of this.
SUMMERS: And since your initial reporting was published, have other agents come forward with more information?
MUSTIAN: David Howell's disclosures, from what I've gathered, have emboldened some folks to speak out about what they've seen. About a week before publishing this story, I reached another former DEA agent - actually, somebody who'd been a supervisor - and, you know, had this moment where I was just putting the cards on the table, saying, look, this is what we've heard from this guy. And then, you know, I hear a pause on the end of the line, and he says I don't know, Jim. I don't think you have the right story. And I said, what do you mean? And he says it's so much worse than what you're describing.
SUMMERS: We've 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 independent review of DEA actions from the inspector general of the Justice Department. Separately, New Mexico's governor also announced a state investigation. The DEA previously told the AP that its agents' actions were lawful. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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