State law enforcement leader explains how fentanyl reaches Minnesota

NINA MOINI: You may have heard from us earlier this week about president Trump's tariff threats on Canada and Mexico. Trump has said he ordered those tariffs on goods to put pressure on the countries to prevent fentanyl trafficking into the United States. Fentanyl, of course, has wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of Americans and resulted in about 70,000 deaths in the US annually.

The synthetic opioid is mostly manufactured in China. According to US Customs and Border Protection, the majority of fentanyl coming into the states was bought by drug cartels in Mexico and smuggled over the US border. Here to give us a better understanding of how fentanyl is making its way into the state of Minnesota and the effect it's having here is Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans. Thank you so much for being with us.

DREW EVANS: Thank you for having me, Nina.

NINA MOINI: I was thinking back to a couple of years ago, I was working on a different story, and I was in your office and I was interviewing you. And I remember this coming up in our conversation. And I want to try to give our listeners an understanding of how fentanyl is making its way into Minnesota. Obviously, we border Canada, but where is it mostly coming from, and how do you know?

DREW EVANS: Yes, so most of our fentanyl and the synthetic opioids that come into Minnesota originate in Mexico, but it doesn't really even start there. The precursor chemicals that are used to manufacture these drugs often originate overseas, China in particular. And the drug cartels that you noted in your opening work to gain access to those precursor chemicals. And then they manufacture these synthetic opioids in Mexico in particular.

And then, through a vast array of drug trafficking networks across the entire United States, they use that as networks to import those deadly synthetic opioids into our state. So many of them originate from south of the border and then through various networks, up through Texas, California, the full southern border, and through those networks to those individuals that are already in Minnesota as an established drug trafficking network to traffic that into our communities.

NINA MOINI: And can you explain what the role of the BCA is when it comes to drug enforcement and maybe just a little bit about the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension? I never want to assume that everybody knows, but can you just tell us what the agency does and how you all are related to drug enforcement?

DREW EVANS: Yeah, so the Minnesota bureau of criminal apprehension has three large divisions. One is our Minnesota Justice Information Services, which if you've ever done a background check, we house all the criminal justice records for the state of Minnesota for criminal history, fingerprints, et cetera.

We have our Forensic Science Services Laboratory that does a lot with drug trafficking. They do DNA, the CSI type of work that's done across state forensics. But they also have a drug laboratory that they do most of the drug analysis in the state with a few other laboratories in Minnesota.

And then we have our Investigations Division that do a wide array of criminal investigations, assisting both our state, local, and federal partners with a variety of crimes, drug trafficking being one of them. And so we have agents spread throughout the entire state. They work with our local police departments, sheriff's offices, but then our violent crime enforcement teams, which are drug task forces across Minnesota.

And then they also work with the federal agencies that do this work. Historically, those were agencies such as the FBI, Homeland Security investigations, but more specifically, the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. And so we work on different pieces of these investigations that all of us hold, and we work collaboratively to disrupt drug trafficking networks.

For the work that the BCA does, we tend to focus on those larger suppliers that are trafficking illicit narcotics into our communities, often originating from different states and different countries, along with those federal partners. And so everybody is working together to try to disrupt the supply into our state from the cartels in particular.

NINA MOINI: What makes it so difficult to find the drugs at the checkpoints and to stop them from getting into the US?

DREW EVANS: The sheer volume is the bottom line. The sheer volume that the cartels are willing to really throw at the border, knowing that there will be significant large seizures, which occur every single day across our southwest border, that they know a simple large volume, that they push across the border, a percentage of that will get across the border.

Much of the fentanyl that's trafficked into the United States still comes across in vehicles. And we have a very large border across the southern United States. And there's a number of checkpoints, and there's such a large volume going back and forth across that border every single day that the sheer volume alone makes it impossible to intercept every single shipment that's coming into the US.

NINA MOINI: I'm sure that, from your position, you've had ongoing conversations with law enforcement lawmakers over several years about how to stop the spread of fentanyl across the state and across the border. What are some of the measures that you have asked for or would ask for from your perspective that would be helpful to stopping this?

DREW EVANS: Well, when we talk about this as an issue in terms of trying to reduce drug consumption in the United States, and then the trafficking is that it really is that three-legged stool-- prevention, intervention, and enforcement. And you really need all of them to be working collaboratively and effectively together to be able to have an actual impact.

We want to keep people from using illicit narcotics to begin with. It's not healthy for them. It's not healthy for our communities. And far too many of your listeners and others that are hearing this have lost loved ones. And we don't ever want to see that anywhere. And so we want to give that education to young people who often have their guard down, might be in social settings that they never begin using this really, really addictive drug to begin with.

The second component of that is to be able to have treatment available. This is a very difficult-- any opioid is very difficult to go through that treatment process and to be able to stay clean and sober from using those. And also along with that intervention is to have widespread naloxone. There's been a reduction in overdose deaths in Minnesota, and that has been a big driver as to why that is.

And then the enforcement piece of that is to continue to disrupt that supply so that we have less of the supply available at any given time. And that's where we work with our federal partners, our HIDTAs, which are high-intensity drug trafficking areas, which we have several counties designated in Minnesota, and then all state and local partners across both Minnesota, but then have strong connections across the whole US.

NINA MOINI: Is the border-- is the US southern border with Mexico part of your plans? And what do you think about how it's being handled so far under the Trump administration?

DREW EVANS: Well, I don't have a perspective on federal policy when it comes to a lot of these. What I will say is that from a Minnesota perspective, that we want to disrupt illicit trafficking of all sorts. So for our northern border, we've seen an increase in gun trafficking going north into Canada. And we need to be a strong partner in that process as well.

The bottom line is that for us to be a thriving country, we need to have security in terms of making sure that illicit products, wherever they might come, are not coming into the United States. So it needs a necessity for us, as the United States, to work collaboratively with our partners, both south of the border and the north of the border because, as North America, we're certainly in all of this together.

And I can't imagine down in Mexico that they would love-- the average Mexican citizen doesn't want to have cartels operating across the country either. And so it really needs to be a collaborative approach, because a lot of our drug consumption and use in the United States has a negative impact on that country as well. And so we need to have a secure border in terms of having the right resources to identify fentanyl trafficking on this particular issue. And that means that checkpoints and then working to disrupt those supplies and cooperation with our partners, both in Mexico and Canada, remain vitally important for us as Minnesotans to be able to be safe and secure here.

NINA MOINI: And just lastly, Superintendent Evans, what is the status right now, if you could tell our listeners, of fentanyl in Minnesota? Has it gotten way worse over the past five years? And do you see it becoming an even greater problem if several changes are not made?

DREW EVANS: Fentanyl remains a top priority for us. We still see a larger volume of methamphetamine in the state comparatively, like just by pure weight, than we do fentanyl. The difference is fentanyl is so deadly. And so every single time somebody uses fentanyl, it could be deadly regardless of how many times they've used it, including the same amount. That's why it continues to be such a focus for us in Minnesota.

It has definitely increased the volume of pills and then pure powder that we're intercepting-- continue to rise in some respects. But, at the same time, there are some positive notes. We've seen the overdoses go down. We've seen overdose deaths go down in Minnesota.

And working together on that three-legged stool approach, I do feel that we can continue to make progress here, that we need to continue to make sure that we have treatment widely available, that we have naloxone available for individuals when they know they may use in those situations, and widely available for first responders, and that we continue to work on the enforcement angle so that we don't allow cartels to get a stronghold in Minnesota because we know they operate here, and we want to make sure that they know this is not a welcome place for them to operate.

So more of the same need to just continue, and we will make steady progress towards reducing what is really, in many ways, a public health emergency and remains so for Minnesota.

NINA MOINI: Superintendent Evans, thank you so much for your time and your perspective. We really appreciate it.

DREW EVANS: Thank you for having me today.

NINA MOINI: That was Drew Evans, superintendent at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.