The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intentionally allowed hundreds of thousands or even millions of fentanyl pills to cross the New Mexico border from 2023-2025, according to the Associated Press.

In a response to the Daily Caller, the DEA rejected the characterization that they had knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities.

Yet despite having detailed knowledge on fentanyl shipments crossing the border and monitoring them, the DEA did not seize them, according to information DEA Special Agent David Howell and an anonymous former DEA supervisor shared with AP. Instead, they reportedly used the information to build major drug-trafficking cases.

Alex Uballez, the U.S. attorney for New Mexico from 2022 to 2025, admitted to letting some drug shipments cross the border, but defended the practice, telling AP that catching “bigger fish” will ultimately “save more lives.” One such investigation resulted in the largest fentanyl bust in DEA history, which saw agents seize around 3 million fentanyl pills in May 2025.  (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Coast Guard Declares ‘We Own The Sea’ After Seizing 225,000 Pounds Of Cocaine In Pacific Viper Operation)

Despite the eventual bust, however, Howell and several veteran DEA agents expressed concern that allowing so many drugs over the border while they built their case presented a major health risk.

“We poisoned our community to make cases,” Howell told the AP during a series of interviews. “Through our own willful blindness, we get to say, ‘We don’t really know what happened to the drugs.’ But we 100% got people killed.”

The anonymous former supervisor told AP that the amount of fentanyl they seized in the bust “was hitting the streets every month while that case was going on” and that the DEA could have dismantled the trafficking network six months earlier.

Although U.S. overdose deaths declined by 14 percent in 2025, overdose deaths in New Mexico increased by 21 percent, the largest increase of any U.S. state last year.

Howell filed a whistleblower complaint in 2023, claiming that the DEA knowingly allowed 1.8 million fentanyl pills to cross the border. In one instance, agents observed — but did not stop — a 74,000-pill drug deal at an Albuquerque trailer park.

Howell approached the U.S. Office of Special Counsel about his concerns and told the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility in 2024 about two separate instances in which the DEA did not seize deliveries of 150,000 and 50,000 fentanyl pills, respectively. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that same year that the federal law enforcement’s inaction posed no “specific danger to public health.”

“Public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts,” the DEA told the Daily Caller. “For operational decisions in investigations like this, DEA is mandated to coordinate investigative decisions with USAO leadership to ensure investigative steps are carefully coordinated to prevent harm to the public. Several independent reviews concluded that the investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances, and consistent with Department guidance.”