San Diego: The fentanyl gateway

San Diego: Fentanyl Gateway

Tijuana is quietly the entry point for most of the fentanyl in the county, as the heroin crisis rages from the Bronx to quiet midwestern towns, and across San Diego, relapsed addicts found nonresponsive in their childhood bedrooms.  It's a deeply personal story for some, the children or parents of addicts, for whom the news of major arrests and seizures don't matter as much as the less than a tenth of a gram that their loved one ingested.

Last summer, a DEA operation resulted in the arrest of a Lemon Grove woman, the daughter of the former mayor (Of Lemon Grove, Marry Sessom Baker) one Anna Baker, 31 years old.  She was in possession of 44 kilos of fentanyl, trafficked from Tijuana, and assumedly awaiting transshipment to Los Angeles, and further points east.  

At that time, it was the largest seizure of fentanyl in San Diego county, and likely the country, as San Diego has been the premier corridor of fentanyl trafficking. It is up almost 900% percent from 2015, which resulted in a handful of seizures, to a more routine standard of dozens of kilos.  Authorities have seized over 540 kilos in 2017.

These will become more routine, in 2018, I predict.  The seizure earlier this week is not really spectacular in any way.  A teenager from Tijuana, one Flavio Diego Davalos, was driving a 2010 Ford Focus, and CBP canines detected narcotics, and found the kilos hidden in the rear seat and quarter panels of the vehicle.  Davaolos is only 19 years old, and was likely paid less than $5,000. 

Fentayl seized on November 6th, 2017, San Ysidro border

There is a system in place, and no shortage of tragedies, deaths, and ruin. The runners who transport the product, are faced with cooperation, a long prison sentence, and the harsh inequality of Tijuana's "post arrest job market".  The addicts who line the morgues, some overwhelmed and overburdened by the flow of bodies. 

Not to mention the bodies in Tijuana's coroner's offices and morgue, where the bodies are coming in rapidly for different reasons, and different causes of death.  Though, Tijuana has no shortage of addicts of both meth and heroin, zombies and their globos, slaves to tienditas, the product sold on street corners, from homes, taxis, delivery services.  

Caesar Daleo Real estate head shot

The profits of fentanyl are staggering.  A federal case unsealed recently detailed the mechanics of this.  An individual, Caesar Daleo, was arrested for attempting to transport a kilo of precursor material into Tijuana.  The chemical was shipped into Los Angeles, via plane, and than shipped to San Ysidro, via mail.

 Agents had intercepted the package, and detained Caesar Daleo, 47, after he picked it up from a mail facility in San Ysidro. Daleo was a former CBP officer, until he retired in 2003, and transitioned into real estate, where he apparently ran into financial problems.

DEA image of fentanyl seizure, unknown residence

The one kilo of precursor, 4ANPP, can be turned into 25 kilos of fentanyl in drug labs in Tijuana.  The average purity is 3-6%, and the price is roughly 32,000 per kilo.  Daleo alone had done 13 of these runs with 4ANPP before he was arrested by federal agents.  That's over 200 kilos of fentanyl, conservatively estimating. 

How many deaths do even 100 kilos cause, shipped across the country, processed into heroin, or sold on it's own?  Even 100 kilos is 100,000 grams, and if less than a tenth of a gram of fentanyl can be fatal....The profits are hard to envision, the deaths are quite visible. 

Sources: 

San Digo Union Tribune  http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-fentanyl-seizure-20171211-story.html

US Attorney's Office Press Release https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/defendant-charged-smuggling-77-pounds-deadly-fentanyl-united-states-one-largest

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/three-defendants-indicted-one-nation-s-largest-ever-fentanyl-seizures