New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has requested a criminal investigation into the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) following an Associated Press report detailing that federal agents permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to enter the state over a two-year period. The governor asked the state’s attorney general to determine if the agency's actions violated New Mexico law.
The call for an investigation marks a significant challenge to a federal law enforcement agency amid the ongoing opioid crisis. The AP investigation found that DEA agents in New Mexico between 2023 and 2025 repeatedly allowed major fentanyl shipments to continue moving through the state rather than seizing them immediately. This strategy was employed as agents worked to build cases against higher-ranking traffickers.
Current and former DEA agents told the AP that this approach constituted a gamble with public safety in a state heavily impacted by the fentanyl epidemic. They suggested it may have violated U.S. Justice Department rules designed to protect the public from fentanyl, a drug the White House has classified as a “weapon of mass destruction.”
"There are no words to describe how reckless and dangerous these decisions were," Governor Lujan Grisham stated. "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 DEA has not immediately responded to a request for comment on the governor’s statement. In previous statements to the AP, the agency has asserted that seizing every drug shipment is not feasible and that the investigative decisions in question were lawful and consistent with Department guidance. "Public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts," DEA spokesperson Amanda Wozniak wrote in an email.
Alex Uballez, who served as U.S. attorney in New Mexico from May 2022 until February 2025, informed the AP that drugs were sometimes left unseized due to limited resources within his office and his belief that prosecuting larger organizations yields a greater impact than intercepting every suspected drug transaction.
It remains unclear if any fatal overdoses in the state can be directly linked to the DEA's strategy. While overdose deaths nationwide decreased by 14% last year, government data indicates that New Mexico experienced a 21% increase.
"New Mexican lives are not the federal government’s cost of doing business," the governor stated. "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."
The AP investigation cited three current and former agents and reviewed government records, including an internal report detailing a 2023 incident where the DEA surveilled a delivery of 74,000 pills but did not seize them at a mobile home park in Albuquerque.
David Howell, a DEA whistleblower who filed a complaint about the unseized fentanyl, has spoken with congressional staffers. Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group representing Howell, has formally requested investigations by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General.
Senator Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio, described Howell's revelations as "a scandal of the highest order" and indicated plans to investigate the number of American lives lost due to the DEA's alleged inaction.
Victims' advocacy groups have also voiced concerns, stating that the DEA's approach in New Mexico appears to contradict its own public awareness campaign, "One Pill Can Kill," which warns of the fatal consequences of even small amounts of fentanyl.