Origin: DOJ OIG initiates DEA fentanyl tactics review

The Justice Department’s inspector general opened a review of the DEA’s handling of fentanyl investigations, focusing on cases where agents learned of deliveries in advance and did not seize the drugs to protect larger prosecutions. The review covers the past two years, including wiretap cases, and will examine whether similar tactics were used outside New Mexico.

The inquiry follows specific incidents raised by whistleblowers, including a June 2023 Albuquerque delivery of 74,000 pills that agents monitored but did not seize. Others alleged 350,000 pills identified at the start of a 2024 wiretap went unseized, and repeated Phoenix–Albuquerque courier runs in 2022 and 2023 of an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 pills each without arrests. The DEA disputes that it knowingly allowed fentanyl to flood communities.

Policy is part of the scope. Justice Department guidance in 2017 told agents to seize fentanyl as soon as practicable. In 2024 the department revised those protocols to give agents more discretion to leave drugs unseized to preserve investigations. The watchdog will assess whether that discretion was used within federal rules and with proper approvals.

AI-synthesized from multiple reported sources