Virus pandemic disrupts drug smuggling from Juarez into El Paso

EL PASO, Texas -- The coronavirus is disrupting the drug supply chain for cartels in Mexico as they try and make profits off their illicit activity.

"The Sinaloa Cartels and the competitors are charging 4 to 5 times more for meth," former U.S. Customs and Border Patrol sector Chief Victor Manjarrez told ABC-7. The price is going up because the product is getting a lot more challenging to get from their source, Manjarrez explained.

He added, "They get a lot of the precursors for meth and opioids from China."

The Drug Enforcement Agency is witnessing first-hand the impact Covid-19 is having on the streets for drug sales.

"There seems to be a high probability in a significant disruption or moderate disruption in chemical supplies," said Kyle Williamson, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's El Paso divsion. " That being said you have everything from the fear itself of being infected with it to the reduction of hours at the ports of entry to the reduction of lanes."

"You have a perfect storm for the drug traffic organizations," Williamson added.

Acting secretary of U.S. Homeland Security Chad Wolf announced earlier this week that the U.S. and Mexico agreed to keep their borders closed to non-essential travel for 30 more days.

"I had a chance to take a look at the bridges and got a sense of things. You look at the bridge of the Americas, Ysleta, and Paso Del Norte and they are running at about 50 percent open in terms of lanes," Manjarrez said.

He elaborated, "In essence they have full personnel deployed. They have twice the amount of eyes. They have time to inspect the vehicle and speak to people. Criminal cartel, whether they are smuggling drugs or humans, rely on the chaos and clutter of legitimate traffic."

Williamson said this is proving to be a problem for smugglers to get their product into the U.S. market, which is why they are seeing a decrease in supply, which is sky-rocketing the price of drugs.

"This week I have seen increases in the prices of methamphetamine of 200% at the wholesale level and a 100% increase at the retail level," Williamson said.

"The price will continue to go up," Manjarrez observed. "I will expect the cartels to struggle and look for more avenues of revenue.