Justice Department Officials in Mexico Provide Capacity Building to Mexican Prosecutors to Counter Fentanyl Trafficking and Organized Crime

To further the Bicentennial Framework between the United States and Mexico, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT), with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Assistance (INL), organized consecutive workshops with Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) prosecutors to improve binational coordination, investigations and prosecutions of fentanyl cases.

“We must do everything we can to stop violent cartels from manufacturing and trafficking fentanyl,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “These workshops with our FGR partners strengthen our abilities to target and hold accountable those who threaten the lives of our citizens through the deadly effects of fentanyl.”

During the week of October 23, in Tijuana, Mexico, OPDAT and INL, with the support of presenters from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, FGR, and the Mexican Federal Judiciary, strengthened the capabilities and skills of more than 100 Mexican federal prosecutors to investigate and prosecute fentanyl cases through two 2-day workshops.

The workshops highlighted and promoted good practices to investigate fentanyl trafficking networks, provided an understanding of global trafficking trends and the fentanyl criminal market worldwide, and explained how precursors from China arrive to the Americas and are eventually used to make fentanyl that is trafficked throughout the United States.

At the workshop, OPDAT Senior Resident Legal Advisor in Mexico René Valle, Justice Department Counselor for Narcotics and Transnational Organized Crime Arthur Wyatt, the Deputy Consul General of the U.S. Embassy in Tijuana William Swaney, and the FGR Delegate in Tijuana Victorino Porcayo Domínguez, provided opening remarks in which they emphasized the importance of binational coordination and collaboration to jointly combat fentanyl trafficking.

This bilateral effort was coordinated to address fentanyl trafficking at the border of both countries and strengthen the justice system, all with the goal to ensure safe and prosperous communities.

Press Release