How much did drug cartels make from fentanyl trafficking in 2023? Photo: Cuartoscuro
A consumer of Fentanyl You pay no more than two dollars for each dose – less than 50 pesos – between 100 and 400 micrograms; an insignificant amount for the profits that the Mexican cartels make from selling the call “Zombie drug.”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) estimates the amount of drugs seized is between 5 and 10 percent of the total illegal substances entering the United States each year, most of them crossing the border with Mexico.
For this reason, the authorities of Mexico and the United States increased their efforts to stop it Fentanyl trafficking and that by last September they had managed to withdraw 10,144 kilograms of the opioid from the market, which is equivalent to 3 in economic terms one thousand 885 million 152 thousand dollars.
This number was calculated using data from a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report and the French newspaper Le Monde's documentary “Narco Business.”
According to the DEA, each kilogram of pure fentanyl from China has a value between 3 thousand 300 and 5 thousand dollars, However, the Mexican cartels reduce the amount until they get between 16 and 24 kilograms of the drug; Meanwhile, Narco Business revealed that the Sinaloa Cartel is spending money on and off $16,000 to $17,000 to produce each kilogram and they sell it for up to $400,000, twenty times what they invest. This investment could generate profits of up to $32.5 million on the North American black market.
How much did drug cartels make from fentanyl trafficking in 2023? Photo: Cuartoscuro
The United States authorities have warned that a dose of 2 milligrams of fentanyl is enough to kill a person, Despite this, Mexican cartels have counterfeited millions of oxycodone pills in the 30 mg version to produce the famous blue 30M pills.
In this context, the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HITDA) has found fentanyl pills containing lethal doses of the opioid on American streets, generating profits of 1.5% six and $32.5 million to drug cartels for every kilogram.
The HITDA stated that a kilogram of fentanyl purchased in Houston for $30,000 – in Sinaloa it sells for up to $13,500 – can be generated a million 1-milligram pills750,000 with 1.5 milligrams and 500,000 with the lethal dose and are sold in the local market for between $6 and $65 depending on region, dose and consumer demand.
How much did drug cartels make from fentanyl trafficking in 2023? Photo: Cuartoscuro
At the end of 2022, the US Senate Commission to Combat Synthetic Opioid Trafficking estimated that “the total income of the Fentanyl export It's probably somewhere in between 700 million and a billion dollars”although they acknowledged that the total illegal drug market – including cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin and marijuana, among others – is more than $100 billion a year.
Narco Business interviewed a Sinaloa Cartel chef who admitted to making up to 40,000 fentanyl tablets in 24 hours; That is, only the criminal organization designated by the United States as the main trafficker of the “zombie drug” is able to make profits in the North American market – with the lowest prices and eliminating the most expensive investments – namely for almost a period of time $237,000 per day in a single drug lab; more than 86 billion if they maintained this production all year round, almost the entire market for drugs that the US Senate believes meets local demand.
It is worth noting that the Fentanyl seized Between Mexico and the United States in 2023 it was in different dosage forms of liquid, powder or already converted into the famous 30M pills, which varies its price.