Seizures of methamphetamine soared at the US-Mexico border during fiscal year 2014.
Union-Tribune San Diego reportsthat meth seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection's San Diego field office accounted for 63 percent of all meth seized at land, air and sea entry points nationwide.
The border protection agents seized 14,732 pounds of the drug in the fiscal year that ended in September, which is a 300 percent increase from 2009.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that 90 percent of meth in United States comes from Mexico.
According to the report, the Sinaloa cartel and Knights Templar control most of the drug’s production and they control smuggling routes on the border.
UT San Diego talked to Gary Hill, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's assistant special agent in charged in San Diego:
Mexican cartels are finding it far less expensive to produce meth in Mexico than importing cocaine from South America, Hill said. “The overhead is tremendous for cocaine,” while for meth, “the overhead is minimal. They oversee the manufacturing. There is no middleman.”
The agency’s seizures in San Diego accounted for 38 percent of cocaine and 31 percent of heroin, but only 1 percent of marijuana.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report)
Copyright 2015 KNPR-FM. To see more, visit http://www.knpr.org/. 9(MDA0NjY4NzQ2MDEyOTc4NzIzMThmMjJkMg001))