United States Drug Enforcement Administration

NEW YORK CITY – Drug Enforcement Administration Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon today announced that the DEA will direct enforcement resources to methamphetamine “transportation hubs” — areas where methamphetamine is often trafficked in bulk and then distributed across the country. While continuing to focus on stopping drugs being smuggled across the border, DEA’s Operation Crystal Shield will ramp up enforcement to block their further distribution into America’s neighborhoods.

DEA has identified eight major methamphetamine transportation hubs where these efforts will be concentrated: Atlanta, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Phoenix, and St. Louis. Together, these DEA Field Divisions accounted for more than 75 percent of methamphetamine seized in the U.S. in 2019.

Operation Crystal Shield builds on existing DEA initiatives that target major drug trafficking networks, including the Mexican cartels that are responsible for the overwhelming majority of methamphetamine trafficked into and within the United States. From FY 2017 to FY 2019, DEA domestic seizures of methamphetamine increased 127 percent from 49,507 pounds to 112,146 pounds. During the same time frame, the number of DEA arrests related to methamphetamine rose nearly twenty percent. 

“For decades, methamphetamine has been a leading cause of violence and addiction – a drug threat that has never gone away,” said Acting Administrator Dhillon. “With a 22 percent increase in methamphetamine-related overdose deaths, now is the time to act, and DEA is leading the way with a surge of interdiction efforts and resources, targeting regional transportation hubs throughout the United States. By reducing the supply of meth, we reduce the violence, addiction, and death it spreads.”

“Opioid use and abuse has left its mark on New York, and today New Yorkers face the rising threat of methamphetamine.  Methamphetamine has battered most of America, leaving overdoses, addiction, and death in its wake,” said DEA New York Division Special Agent in Charge Ray Donovan,  “New York is a prime target for traffickers, so much that methamphetamine seizures have increased 136% from 2018 to 2019.  Traffickers at all levels have been arrested in New York including a dealer selling meth at Saratoga Race Track, to multiple members of a Mexican trafficking network that smuggled hundreds of pounds of meth concealed in candles into the greater New York City metropolitan area.  It is imperative that New Yorkers are aware of methamphetamine and its consequences to deter use and abuse in our communities.  For more information please go to www.dea.gov.