Record seizure of 15 tons of methamphetamine in Mexico

The Mexican military seized 15 tons of pure methamphetamine in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, an amount equal to half of all seizures of the synthetic drug in 2009 worldwide (2009 is the last year for which the UN published official data).

From that quantity, 13 million doses can be made, the value of which on American streets exceeds four billion dollars.

"This could be a major blow to the supply chain in the US. When we get that much out of the supply chain, it's a huge success," said US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) spokesman Rusty Payne.

Journalists were shown tons of white and yellow powder, which were found in a laboratory on a small ranch outside Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city and the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco.

The Mexican army announced that the soldiers received several anonymous tips and then found a huge stash of drugs at the aforementioned ranch.

In a statement, the army called the seizure "historic" and a record.

No people were found on the ranch, so no one was arrested, although it is assumed that 12 to 15 people worked in the laboratory.

The regional representative of the UN Office for the fight against drugs and crime, Antonio Macitelli, assessed that a seizure of that volume could mean either that the sale of methamphetamine is going poorly, so as in any other trade, when the market is depressed, stocks are created, or that the one who stands behind everything, he was preparing for expansion, let's say to the markets of Latin America or Asia.

The previous largest seizure by the Mexican military was in June 2010, when it discovered 3,1 tons of pure methamphetamine in the central state of Queretaro.

Judicial authorities in Mexico believed that the seizure was linked to the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which had entered the business of producing methamphetamine.

An unnamed senior US judicial official in Mexico said today that this latest seizure in Jalisco is "probably linked to the Sinaloa cartel."

He said Sinaloa is turning to meth production "to reduce its reliance on Colombian cocaine by flooding the market with meth."

Eighty percent of all methamphetamine coming into the US is seized at the Mexican border, according to data from the National Drug Intelligence Center.

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