Crime
While Canadian police remain hesitant, U.S. Targets Cartels Abroad as Sinaloa’s Reach Spans 40 Nations
DEA leader tells The Bureau that while Trump’s cartel extraditions with Mexico demonstrate significant collaboration, Canadian police remain hesitant partners in the fight against fentanyl networks
The Drug Enforcement Administration says it has dealt a sharp blow to the Sinaloa Cartel — which is embedded in about 40 nations outside Mexico — after a week-long surge of operations across the United States and abroad that netted more than 600 arrests and the seizure of massive quantities of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and cash.
From August 25 through August 29, DEA agents in 23 domestic divisions and seven international regions coordinated what officials described as one of the most significant enforcement pushes against the cartel in recent years, the agency announced yesterday.
The operation comes six months after the Trump administration designated the Sinaloa Cartel and seven other groups as foreign terrorist organizations, a move that heightened both legal pressure and political attention on the networks blamed for fueling the U.S. fentanyl crisis.
The crackdown produced 617 arrests, more than $11 million in currency seizures, and 420 firearms, alongside a cache of synthetic and traditional narcotics that investigators say could have fueled untold overdoses nationwide.
The seizures included 480 kilograms of fentanyl powder, more than 714,000 counterfeit pills, 2,200 kilograms of methamphetamine, nearly 7,500 kilograms of cocaine, and over 16 kilograms of heroin.
“Every kilogram of poison seized, every dollar stripped from the cartels, and every arrest we make represents lives saved and communities defended,” Administrator Terrance Cole said. His agency’s statement asserted there are tens of thousands of Sinaloa members, associates, and facilitators operating worldwide — in at least 40 countries — who are responsible for the production, manufacturing, distribution, and operations related to trafficking deadly synthetic drugs.
His predecessor, former DEA chief Derek Maltz, told The Bureau in an exclusive interview that President Trump has achieved unprecedented extraditions from Mexico, bringing dozens of senior cartel leaders into U.S. custody.
Maltz recounted being at Dulles Airport as military flights delivered figures such as Los Zetas bosses Miguel and Omar Treviño and the Sinaloa kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero, wanted for the murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena. “We’ve never seen that kind of result,” Maltz said, adding: “What’s happening is that we are seeing a drastic reduction in fentanyl seizures at the U.S. southern border. They’re pretty much cut in half over the last several months, which to me is a strong indicator of, number one, the production has gone down. And the cartels are clearly concerned about the optics and the deaths of Americans.”
But alongside the successes on extradition and southern border clampdowns, Maltz said, cartels are adapting. They are now pushing mass shipments of cocaine and synthetic drugs into and through other regions — notably Canada, which retains a geographic advantage for traffickers. Product moves by sea from China and Mexico up the coast into Vancouver, and via Canadian commercial trucks that collect cocaine and methamphetamine shipments from Mexican suppliers in California while also delivering fentanyl precursors from Vancouver to Los Angeles, according to a recent indictment targeting Indo-Canadian Vancouver gangs and Chinese suppliers.
“The cartels are definitely concerned about the optics and the deaths of Americans,” Maltz said. “But they’re not out of business — they’re pivoting to the global cocaine market, and they’re still producing meth in industrial labs.”
On the controversy in Canada — whether superlabs run by Mexican cartels are sending significant amounts of fentanyl or its precursors across the northern border, and whether Canadian police have failed to cooperate with U.S. enforcement, as President Donald Trump has charged — Maltz said Canadian denials ignore the reality of the networks involved.
“First of all, you don’t know what you don’t know. There’s so much wide-open border between Canada and the United States,” he told The Bureau. “I was the guy around 2006 when I ran the Special Operations Division. I invited the RCMP to come in and operate with us because at that time we started seeing massive cocaine movements up the West Coast of the United States into Canada. And we saw at that time gangs like the Hells Angels and others that were doing a lot of the distribution of mass amounts of cocaine for cartels. So we wanted to collaborate with the Mounties.”
Maltz recalled embedding Canadian officers in what became a growing international hub for cross-border enforcement. “We put somebody right in the middle of our synchronization center.”
But progress, he said, has remained halting. “Even when — I think it was February or March with the commissioner of the RCMP and his executive staff — I mean, they were very nice and they were trying to establish relationships again with the DEA. But it’s almost like Groundhog Day. They have to produce results. They have to demonstrate that commitment by action, not by words, not by get-togethers in one of these countries in the embassies and drinking tea or coffee. It’s about action to shut down these cartels. And I haven’t seen a lot of that.”
Crime
Public Execution of Anti-Cartel Mayor in Michoacán Prompts U.S. Offer to Intervene Against Cartels
“I don’t want to be just another mayor on the list of those executed”
On the first night of November, during Day of the Dead celebrations, the independent, anti-cartel mayor of Uruapan in Michoacán, Carlos Manzo, was assassinated in the heart of his city during a public festival. His bloody murder has underscored the deadly risks faced by local officials who may lack adequate protection from a state that critics say is corroded by corruption and penetrated by powerful cartel networks that, in some regions, have supplanted government authority. The killing intensifies urgent questions about political and police corruption, cartel impunity, and the scope of U.S.–Mexico security cooperation — with a response from the U.S. State Department today offering to “deepen security cooperation with Mexico.”
Manzo, a fiercely outspoken anti-cartel mayor who took office in 2024 as Uruapan’s first independent leader, was gunned down as he stood before crowds at the annual Day of the Dead candlelight celebration. Witnesses said gunfire erupted shortly after Manzo appeared onstage, holding his young son moments before the attack. The festival, known locally as the Festival de las Velas, drew hundreds of families to Uruapan’s central plaza — now transformed into the scene of Mexico’s latest high-profile political assassination, and a catalyst for nationwide outrage, as online protests surged and citizens called for demonstrations against cartel violence.
According to early reports, at least two suspects have been detained and one attacker was killed on site. Authorities asserted — despite the success of the attack — that Manzo had been under National Guard protection since December 2024, with additional reinforcements added in May 2025 following credible threats to his life.
In Washington today, the killing drew political reaction. “My thoughts are with the family and friends of Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico, who was assassinated at a public Day of the Dead celebration last night. The United States stands ready to deepen security cooperation with Mexico to wipe out organized crime on both sides of the border,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said in a statement shared online.
Federal Security Minister Omar García Harfuch said the gunmen “took advantage of the vulnerability of a public event” to carry out the attack, despite a standing security perimeter.
President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the killing as a “vile” assault on democracy and vowed there would be “zero impunity.” Her administration convened an emergency security meeting and pledged that the investigation would reach the “intellectual authors” of the crime. Yet the murder has already ignited outrage across Mexico over the government’s failure to protect local officials in cartel-dominated states such as Michoacán, where extortion, assassinations, and territorial disputes continue to erode basic governance.
Manzo had publicly warned of his fate. “I don’t want to be just another mayor on the list of those executed,” he said earlier this year, as he pressed the federal government for better coordination between municipal and military authorities. For years, Uruapan — an agricultural and trade hub in western Mexico — has been the site of deadly clashes between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and remnants of the Knights Templar Organization, both vying to control lucrative extortion and drug routes.
The killing of Manzo fits a dark and familiar pattern. In 2025 alone, several mayors in Michoacán, Guerrero, and Tamaulipas have been killed in attacks widely attributed to organized-crime groups. In June, the mayors of Tepalcatepec and Tacámbaro were ambushed and slain while traveling in official convoys. More than 90 local officials have been murdered since 2018 — a rate that analysts say reflects how cartels target municipal governments to ensure political control over territories tied to narcotics, mining, and agriculture. Uruapan, at the heart of Mexico’s avocado belt, is a strategic prize for the cartels that tax every shipment leaving the region.
The mayor’s death also recalls earlier tragedies that scarred the nation. In 2012, Dr. María Santos Gorrostieta Salazar, the former mayor of Tiquicheo, was abducted and murdered after surviving two assassination attempts and defying cartel threats. Her death became emblematic of the dangers faced by reformers who refuse to cooperate with criminal groups. More than a decade later, Manzo’s murder illustrates that little has changed — except the brazenness of the attackers, now willing to strike in front of cameras and families celebrating one of Mexico’s most sacred holidays.
The killing has also reignited long-standing U.S. frustration over Mexico’s inability to stem cartel violence, even as the Trump administration has expanded counter-narcotics operations at the border. Under Trump’s renewed directives, the U.S. has classified several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and empowered the Pentagon to develop strike options against high-value targets abroad. A September 2025 joint statement between Washington and Mexico City pledged deeper intelligence sharing and cross-border enforcement initiatives, including efforts to halt arms trafficking southward.
However, Mexico’s government remains deeply wary of any U.S. military involvement on its soil. President Sheinbaum has warned that “Mexico will not stand for an invasion in the name of counter-cartel operations,” rebuffing Republican calls for unilateral action. Her position lays bare a long-standing tension between Mexico’s need for U.S. support and its insistence on sovereignty — a fault line that Manzo’s killing has reignited.
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Crime
Canada Seizes 4,300 Litres of Chinese Drug Precursors Amid Trump’s Tariff Pressure Over Fentanyl Flows
In what appears to be the second-largest Chinese precursor-chemical seizure in British Columbia in the past decade, Canadian border and police officials announced they intercepted more than 4,300 litres of chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl and other synthetic drugs at a notoriously troubled port in Delta, B.C.
The announcement of a seizure that occurred in May 2025 comes amid President Donald Trump’s continuing pressure on Ottawa to crack down on fentanyl trafficking in the province — which U.S. officials say has become a key production and shipment point for Chinese and Mexican traffickers.
The seizure — announced jointly by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the RCMP — underscores the scale and persistence of global trafficking networks funnelling illicit materials into Canada’s drug markets.
According to the agencies, border officers examined two marine containers that arrived from China in mid-May, both bound for Calgary, Alberta. Acting on intelligence developed by CBSA’s Pacific Region, officers discovered 3,600 litres of 1,4 Butanediol, a key ingredient for producing GHB, often known as the “date-rape drug”; 500 litres of Propionyl Chloride, a chemical precursor used to synthesize fentanyl; and 200 litres of Gamma Butyrolactone (GBL), another controlled intoxicant.
The chemicals were concealed inside 60 clear jugs and 20 blue drums within the containers. Investigators believe the shipment was intended for use in clandestine drug laboratories. The RCMP confirmed that an investigation into the importation network remains ongoing.
The seizure comes amid growing concern about Canada’s port security, particularly in Metro Vancouver, where experts and local officials say criminal networks are exploiting gaps in federal enforcement.
The Delta seizure follows a series of major CBSA operations targeting precursor chemicals at Pacific ports. In May 2022, CBSA officers in the Metro Vancouver District examined a container from China declared as “toys” and discovered 1,133 kilograms of the fentanyl-precursor chemical Propionyl Chloride, with the potential to produce more than a billion doses of fentanyl.
Public Safety Canada also reported that in the first half of 2021, CBSA seized more than 5,000 kilograms of precursor chemicals, compared with just 512 kilograms in 2020 — reflecting what officials called a “dramatic escalation” in attempts to smuggle fentanyl inputs into the country.
In 2023, the City of Delta released a report highlighting major vulnerabilities at port terminal facilities, warning that there is “literally no downside” for organized criminals to infiltrate port operations. The report noted that British Columbia’s provincial threat assessment rated ports as highly susceptible to corruption and organized-crime infiltration.
At the time, Delta Mayor George Harvie called the lack of a dedicated national port-policing force “a threat to national security.” In comments to the Canadian Press, Harvie said that while Canada’s ports fall under federal jurisdiction, the “total absence of uniformed police at the facilities makes them obvious targets for criminal elements — from Mexican drug cartels to biker gangs.”
“We’re witnessing a relentless flow of illegal drugs, weapons and contraband into Canada through our ports, and that threatens our national security,” Harvie said.
The Port of Vancouver complex, which includes major terminals in Delta, Surrey, and Vancouver, handles roughly three million containers annually, with millions more expected as port expansion plans move forward.
The Delta report reiterated how difficult it has become to police these sprawling operations since the Ports Canada Police were disbanded in 1997. More than a quarter-century later, Harvie said, the consequences of that decision are now “alarmingly clear.”
The CBSA announcement today comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on Canadian exports, accusing Ottawa of failing to interdict the flow of fentanyl and precursor chemicals trafficked through British Columbia ports. Washington has repeatedly pressed Canada to strengthen port enforcement and anti-money-laundering controls, citing the West Coast’s role in China- and Mexico-linked trafficking networks.
Simultaneously, in trade negotiations with Beijing, Mr. Trump announced a reduction in tariffs tied to the fentanyl supply chain — raising concern that Washington has eased pressure on China, the primary source of finished fentanyl now responsible for hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths across North America.
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