The U.S. Justice Department’s internal watchdog announced Monday it will review a controversial tactic in which federal law enforcement allowed fentanyl to reach the streets to build bigger cases against drug traffickers. The review will examine government policies and wiretap investigations where the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration may have learned of fentanyl deliveries before they happened but stood down to avoid jeopardizing larger prosecutions.
Current and former agents have stated that this investigative strategy, known as allowing drugs to “walk,” amounts to a gamble with public safety and may have violated Justice Department rules intended to safeguard communities from a synthetic opioid that the White House has designated as a “weapon of mass destruction.”
The review follows an Associated Press investigation that found DEA agents repeatedly monitored, but did not seize, major fentanyl shipments in New Mexico between 2023 and 2025. The announcement was made by Justice Department Inspector General Don Berthiaume.
DEA Administrator Terry Cole had requested a narrower inspector general inquiry following the AP’s reporting, including a review of his agency’s handling of a whistleblower complaint. Cole stated that his request for an outside inquiry “should not be interpreted as reflecting any lack of confidence in the professionalism or integrity of DEA personnel.”
One agent, David Howell, told AP that federal authorities “poisoned our community to make cases” in New Mexico. An internal DEA report detailed how the agency watched and declined to interdict a fentanyl delivery of 74,000 pills in an Albuquerque mobile home park. This occurred amid the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history and while the DEA was leading a public awareness campaign, “One Pill Can Kill,” emphasizing the lethal nature of even small amounts of fentanyl.
The inspector general’s review will focus on Justice Department actions over the past two years and could determine whether the DEA permitted similar drug shipments to occur in other cities. Howell expressed his expectation that the review will show federal authorities “endangered the public through willful inaction.”
Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group representing Howell, stated, "We welcome a third-party review of the tactics DEA and the New Mexico U.S. Attorney’s Office used to needlessly put Americans at risk of exposure to fentanyl.” Leavitt has called for the Justice Department to revert to an earlier policy from 2017 that mandated agents to “seize or otherwise prevent the distribution” of fentanyl “as soon as practicable.” The department revised these rules in 2024, allowing law enforcement more discretion in preventing fentanyl tracking, citing “the benefits to be achieved through preserving the investigation.”
This inspector general review occurs as New Mexico authorities continue their own investigation into whether DEA agents violated state law by allowing hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills onto the streets of Albuquerque. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez recently threatened to sue the Justice Department after it declined to provide requested records and has not permitted Howell to be interviewed by state authorities. Torrez wrote in a letter that “The state is bearing the societal and financial harms of an influx of fentanyl into its communities.”
Two additional DEA whistleblowers in New Mexico have come forward recently. One alleged that colleagues failed to seize 350,000 fentanyl pills that they learned about during the first intercepted call of a 2024 wiretap. That shipment was part of an investigation that ultimately resulted in the largest fentanyl seizure in DEA history. Court records indicate agents had opportunities to seize thousands of pills but allowed trafficking to continue for months while pursuing the broader investigation.
The other whistleblower filed a complaint alleging colleagues monitored, but did not arrest, a drug courier making repeated fentanyl deliveries from Phoenix to Albuquerque between 2022 and 2023. Agents estimated these deliveries contained between 50,000 and 100,000 fentanyl pills that went unseized.