New Mexico Gov. Lujan Grisham asks AG to investigate federal agents who let fentanyl cross into NM

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday evening announced she was asking Attorney General Raúl Torrez to investigate Drug Enforcement Administration agents who let fentanyl pills cross into the state.

Her announcement came after news reports in the Albuquerque Journal and the Associated Press detailed how a DEA whistleblower accused officials in the federal law enforcement agency of opting to track fentanyl shipments in New Mexico rather than seize them in hopes of catching higher-ups in drug trafficking deals.

One such deal involved traffickers moving 74,000 fentanyl pills into an Albuquerque mobile home community, the AP reported.

“Shockingly, the federal government stood by while monitoring shipments, tallying exact pill counts and watching as these deadly drugs hit the streets,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “Make no mistake: the DEA knew people would die if these pills made it into New Mexico communities, and the agency let it happen anyway. The result: hundreds of New Mexican parents burying their kids. Hundreds of New Mexican kids growing up without stable parents. All while the federal government stood by.”

She said she asked Torrez to investigate whether federal agents broke the law and, if so, to prosecute them. Torrez’s office did not immediately respond Thursday to Source NM’s request for comment.

“If the justification for letting these pills flood our communities was that it would somehow make New Mexico safer down the road through bigger eventual busts, the results say otherwise,” Lujan Grisham said. “New Mexico now leads the nation in the increase in overdose deaths for the second straight year, despite deaths dropping nationwide.”

Last year, Lujan Grisham cited fentanyl overdose deaths when she mobilized the National Guard to Española to aid local police. She also authorized the National Guard to assist Albuquerque police.

Lujan Grisham said in recent years she has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to send more agents to New Mexico to address drug trafficking and other crime and she has written repeatedly to U.S. Attorneys General Merrick Garland and Pam Bondi to request that the U.S. Department of Justice send “additional federal agents, resources and support to New Mexico law enforcement.”

“While my administration was doing everything we could to stem the tide of fentanyl coming into our state, the federal government deliberately allowed it to flood in. New Mexican lives are not the federal government’s cost of doing business,” Lujan Grisham said. “I plan to hold the federal government accountable for this disaster and will explore every possible avenue of action against the federal government to right these wrongs.”