DEA Reports Cocaine Seizures, Overdoses On Rise in Chicago Area
The drug is being shipped from Colombia and other South American countries to Mexico, where cartels then smuggle it north. Chicago dealers are mixing it with the more potent fentanyl.
Landwebs
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized more than two tons of cocaine in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin in the year that ended Sept. 30, up 50 percent over the previous 12 months, even as the quantity seized in the Chicago area continues to soar over the last six months compared with the same period a year earlier, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. The drug is being shipped from Colombia and other South American countries to Mexico, where cartels then smuggle it north, a practice that has increased dramatically since the Colombian government signed a peace deal in 2016 with leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the guerrilla group known as FARC, which agreed to disarm.
Since FARC’s power has waned as a result of the peace deal, another violent guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, known as ELN, has become the biggest cocaine producer in Colombia. Cultivation of coca in Colombia in 2020 exceeded all-time records, according to a State Department report last month. In addition to a huge increase of cocaine smuggling to Chicago, DEA officials also warned in 2018 that Mexican cartels and Chicago drug dealers were beginning to mix the potent drug fentanyl with cocaine, increasing the risk of overdoses. In 2019, at least 564 people died of overdoses in which cocaine was involved, followed by 723 in 2020, 841 in 2021, and more than 105 in 2022 so far. More than half of the deaths involved a mixture of cocaine and fentanyl, sometimes in combination with alcohol and other drugs.
