DEA Allowed Fentanyl to Hit Streets While Agents Watched, Records Show

Between 2023 and 2025, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach the streets of New Mexico as part of a strategy to build larger criminal cases against major drug traffickers, according to government records and interviews with current and former agents reviewed by AP News. The revelations, published Monday, have ignited questions about enforcement priorities and public accountability at an agency tasked with combating the deadliest drug epidemic in American history.

A Whistleblower Steps Forward

The investigation centers on DEA Special Agent David Howell, a 19-year veteran and former Navy officer who filed a formal whistleblower complaint in late 2023 with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Howell alleged that the tactic of allowing fentanyl shipments to “walk” — a law enforcement practice of letting contraband transactions proceed under surveillance — endangered public safety in ways that violated Justice Department guidelines.

“We poisoned our community to make cases,” Howell told AP in a series of interviews in New Mexico. “Through our own willful blindness, we get to say, ‘We don’t really know what happened to the drugs.’ But we 100% got people killed.”

Documented Incidents of Inaction

Records detail specific instances where DEA agents monitored fentanyl deliveries but declined to intervene. In June 2023, agents surveilled a transaction at an Albuquerque mobile home park where traffickers delivered 74,000 fentanyl pills, according to a 66-page DEA report reviewed by AP. Federal prosecutors later confirmed the pill count in a court filing. Days earlier, investigators watched the same distribution ring deliver a spare tire hiding another suspected fentanyl shipment that also went unseized.

Howell described the 74,000-pill decision as akin to “providing one fentanyl pill to each person at a football stadium.” In his whistleblower disclosures, he reported that agents permitted the delivery of at least 1.8 million fentanyl pills in a single multi-state investigation.

A former DEA supervisor in Albuquerque, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, told AP that he and his colleagues allowed “millions” of pills to go unseized. “The amount we ultimately seized was hitting the streets every month while that case was going on,” the former supervisor said.

The Largest Bust in DEA History

The multi-state investigation ultimately culminated in May 2025 with the seizure of more than 3 million fentanyl pills — the largest bust in DEA history — announced by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. But critics argue the success came at a devastating cost.

While overdose deaths nationwide fell 14% last year, government data show New Mexico tallied a 21% spike. Albuquerque, which has a neighborhood so besieged by drugs it is known as “War Zone,” remains at the epicenter of the crisis.

Official Justifications and Internal Divisions

Alex Uballez, who served as U.S. attorney for New Mexico from 2022 through 2025, defended the approach, arguing that limited resources required prioritizing larger prosecutions. “The bigger fish are worth catching,” Uballez told AP, “and that will save more lives.”

The DEA pushed back forcefully against the investigation’s conclusions. “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. She said the investigations involved court-authorized wiretaps and real-time surveillance targeting larger drug trafficking organizations, and that “the investigative decisions at issue were lawful, reasonable under the circumstances and consistent with Department guidance.”

A Shifting Legal Framework

The Justice Department’s original 2017 “Fentanyl Protocols” — internal rules that had not previously been made public — called on agents to seize fentanyl “as soon as practicable” and declared that “protecting public safety is paramount,” irrespective of whether seizures compromise investigations. However, the DOJ rewrote those rules in 2024 to afford law enforcement more discretion, allowing investigators to “exercise discretion in determining whether to take action to prevent the trafficking of fentanyl.”

Current and former agents compared the DEA’s fentanyl strategy to the ATF’s infamous “Operation Fast and Furious,” the 2011 gun-walking scandal in which agents allowed approximately 2,000 assault weapons to be smuggled into Mexico. Two of those guns were later found at the scene of a Border Patrol agent’s fatal shooting, triggering bipartisan criticism and a DOJ prohibition on allowing firearms to be trafficked.

Whistleblower Retaliation and Oversight Failures

Despite the seriousness of Howell’s allegations, internal investigations cleared the DEA. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility found in 2024 that the agency’s decisions were reasonable and posed no “specific danger to public health.” The Office of Special Counsel concurred.

Howell, however, paid a personal price. The DEA relegated him to desk duty for more than a year, docked his performance evaluations, and prosecutors barred him from testifying in federal court, citing his “pattern of refusing to heed” admonitions to allow drugs to go unseized during long-term investigations.

Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group that has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee and the DOJ Inspector General to investigate, called the situation “outrageous.” “It’s outrageous to put that many lives at risk in hopes of making a big case,” Leavitt said.

Broader Implications

The revelations come at a time when the White House has taken an increasingly aggressive stance on fentanyl. In December 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14367 designating fentanyl as a “Weapon of Mass Destruction,” citing its lethality and the threat it poses to national security.

The story raises fundamental questions about the balance between long-term investigative goals and immediate public safety — a tension that has only grown more acute as fentanyl’s extreme potency has rendered traditional drug enforcement tactics far more dangerous. With congressional scrutiny likely and the whistleblower advocacy group pressing for investigations, the DEA may face renewed pressure to reform its approach to the deadliest drug ever to cross the border.

What to Watch For

Lawmakers are expected to demand hearings on the DEA’s tactics, and the DOJ may face pressure to revisit its 2024 revisions to the Fentanyl Protocols. Howell’s treatment could also become a case study in whistleblower protections, potentially prompting legislative action. The question of how many overdose deaths can be linked to the unseized shipments remains unanswered — and may prove impossible to determine.”