HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and a coalition of 21 state attorneys general today called on President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) under federal law. The FTO designation will make additional federal resources available to confront the fentanyl crisis head-on and save American lives.
Fentanyl has driven a meteoric increase in drug overdoses, which now kill more than 100,000 Americans per year. Over a ten-day period earlier this month, at least 28 Montanans overdosed on drugs, suspected to be fentanyl, killing eight. Attorney General Knudsen and the coalition are demanding the FTO-designation for drug cartels because of the massive death they are causing and the severe threat they pose to the nation and to the states.
“We know that Mexican cartels are producing illicit and deadly fentanyl in Mexico then trafficking it across the nation’s southern border and up to Montana where they can make top dollar for their product. One hundred percent of the illicit fentanyl in Montana is coming from the cartels – and it’s killing Montanans,” Attorney General Knudsen said. “I will continue to do everything in my power as attorney general to combat the fentanyl problem, but until President Biden secures the southern border, we can’t solve the problem.”
Not only are cartels smuggling poison into the United States, they are also assassinating rivals and government officials, ambushing and killing Americans at the border, and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican Government. Designating major cartels as FTOs will give state and federal law enforcement agencies increased authority to freeze cartel assets, deny entry to cartel members, and allow prosecutors to pursue stricter punishments against those who provide them material support.
“The national security threats posed by this ongoing campaign of violence are particularly acute. Clashes between gunman from rival cartels claimed the lives of 9 U.S. citizens just across the U.S. border on November 4, 2019. The cartels’ intense violence goes far beyond mere resistance to interference with their drug trafficking and now encompasses a general effort to intimidate rivals and expand their influence. This violence, which necessarily involves using firearms and explosives to kill security forces, plainly constitutes terrorist activity,” the attorneys general wrote.
Traditional counter-narcotics efforts are allowing cartels to get away with their criminal behavior because of narrow laws that don’t address the current threat they pose. For example, the drug cartels have diversified their operations beyond mere narcotics trafficking to include seemingly legitimate enterprises, and unless these cartel-driven enterprises have directly engaged in narcotics trafficking, they escape designation under the Kingpin Act.
Click here to read the letter.
Through September 30, Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (RMHIDTA) task forces seized 154,986 fentanyl dosage units in Montana. This number includes 22,031 fentanyl dosage units combined with 29.3 fentanyl pounds converted to dosage units. In all of 2021, a combined 60,577 combined dosage units were seized. In 2020, that combined amount was 6,663, and in 2019, it was 1,900.
According to the CDC, drug overdose deaths increased 30 percent from 2019 to 2020 in the United States and are now a leading cause of death for young adults. The rate of overdose deaths increased 49 percent among Native American people ages 25 to 44 years old. Fentanyl is primarily driving the increase.
In August 2022, Attorney General Knudsen declared fentanyl the top public safety threat in Montana. He continues to fight the Biden administration’s disastrous border policies in federal court, engaging in multiple lawsuits to compel it to enforce existing immigration laws and secure the border. He also called on the Biden administration earlier this year to take a tougher stance toward China and Mexico against the influx of fentanyl and to classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.
To fight the problem in Montana, Attorney General Knudsen has increased the number of Montana Department of Justice narcotics and major case agents, added a statewide drug intelligence officer who assists local law enforcement and public health agencies, and spearheaded a grant program that helped deploy two dozen drug detecting K9s around the state. One of those K9s has helped take 400 fentanyl pills off the street since the beginning of the year. He has also asked the state Legislature to allocate additional funding to the Montana Department of Justice for more narcotics agents.
