DEA details drug trafficking crisis in western Washington

DEA details drug trafficking in western Washington

FOX 13 Seattle's David Rose sits down with DEA Seattle Special Agent in Charge David Reames to get a better understanding of the drug trafficking crisis in western Washington and what's fueling it.

SEATTLE - The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says overdoses are the leading cause of death in adults 18 to 45. More than traffic accidents, gun violence, and even cancer.

In 2023, more than 110,000 people in the U.S. died from an overdose. And just on Tuesday, August 20, the King County Medical Examiner reported six overdose deaths, ranging from heroin, to cocaine, to meth and fentanyl.

So far in 2024, more than 690 people have overdosed in King County, and opioid-related deaths reached an all-time high in Snohomish County last year, totaling 269. Fentanyl was involved in 95% of those cases.

In response, Snohomish County plans to launch an opioid treatment program this fall. A van with healthcare workers will travel parts of Highway 2 and 530, providing opioid addiction medication and other recovery services. The annual cost to keep the program going is around $900,000.

Five people were recently arrested for trafficking fentanyl into Whatcom County for years. Law enforcement recovered about 70 pounds of narcotics worth up to $1 million, and the sheriff says the suspects had more fentanyl pills than half the county's population.

"These drug dealers are coming into our communities and trying to hide and really make money on the backs of the deaths and the struggle of people. So, we're certainly committed to finding those folks," said DEA Seattle Special Agent in Charge David Reames.

There was also evidence of the suspects using a 3D printer to manufacture untraceable ghost guns. Homeland Security and the DEA played key roles in the big bust.

"Drug trafficking by nature lends itself to violence, so traffickers use guns to protect themselves, use guns to intimidate the competition, use guns to protect their source of supply and their roots, so violence is sort of inherent in the program. So ghost guns are just another evolution of that, with the advent of 3D printing it's so easy to get a hold of guns, and that's the one avenue they don't have to worry about," said Reames. "So buying a gun through a traditional means, there's a serial number, you have a buyer, you have someone you can point to as the purchaser. You don't have that with ghost guns, they could just be printed by someone at their house, they're untraceable."

As ghost guns become more accessible to criminals, more drugs are infiltrating the market in western Washington as well, including methamphetamine.

"Methamphetamine is a crisis. It's a huge problem. If it weren't for fentanyl being so lethal, we'd be talking about the methamphetamine crisis right now, it's the same proportion. Fentanyl sort of overshadows it because fentanyl's so much more lethal, but we're seeing amounts of methamphetamine I've never seen before in my life," Reames said. "You don't have small home labs making methamphetamine anymore, it's all large production, large-scale production facilities in Mexico creating very high purity methamphetamine, high 90s, 100% pure meth, is what we're seeing today. Hundreds of pounds of it. Not a week goes by we don't seize multiple pounds of methamphetamine."

Reames says one change the DEA's seeing is how the cartel is trafficking fentanyl. There are fewer pills on the streets, but more fentanyl powder, which is being mixed in with other drugs and pressed into pills by local dealers.

"It can be much more dangerous. Fentanyl is fentanyl, but powdered fentanyl, we're seeing purities rising into the 80s and 90%," Reames said.

Fentanyl pills can be created by cartels for pennies on the dollar, so even when pills sell for 30 cents or $1, they're still making a sizable profit.

"Those cartels make fentanyl in their laboratories in Mexico. So they can make as much as they want, as many chemicals as they buy, that's the amount of fentanyl they can make. There's no growing season, they can make as much as they want. So they have an economy to scale, they can produce it very cheaply and send it to the United States," Reames said.

The Mexican cartel is also on the top of the DEA's mind, as the Seattle Police Department helped them make a large bust not too long ago.

"The Sinaloa cartel controls the trafficking routes in the West Coast of the United States, so I-5 is Sinaloa cartel-controlled country. Back in June, we had a case with the Seattle Police where we had a street level buy of methamphetamine here about 18 months ago in Seattle. The investigators from DEA and Seattle Police tracked that methamphetamine back to the Sinaloa cartel, and then back to Columbia, the producers of the cocaine that was a part of that organization," Reames said. "In the June takedown, we arrested, Columbia National Police helped us, as well as other agencies here in town, arrested the producers, the distributors, the retailers here in the Seattle area, as well as the money launderers. We took the whole weed out from the root. So that's the sort of thing the Sinaloa cartel offers, is a beginning to end kind of control of the process. And that's what the DEA is trying to fight against."

Reames also advises the public to always check any substances before taking them.

"It's impossible to really know what's in something you're taking. So, don't trust anybody, if it's a friend giving you something, if it's a dealer selling you something, assume anything has fentanyl in it and could possibly kill you," Reames said.