That is why they are approaching universities: once recruiters meet a promising student, they dedicate themselves to researching their life, reaching out to their personal circles to find out if they would be willing to collaborate.
“In their quest to build fentanyl empires, Mexican criminal groups are turning to an unusual pool of talent: not hitmen or corrupt police, but chemistry students studying at Mexican universities,” says the publication, using Sinaloa as an example.
The job of the cartels now is to synthesize the precursors to manufacture drugs like fentanyl, so the new process that the groups are trying to do would mainly be to avoid importing the chemical compounds from China.
According to US officials consulted by the American newspaper, if they achieve this the cartels would have more control over drugs and the crisis will worsen.
The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaumassured that there is no evidence that chemistry students are recruited into drug trafficking, however, he advised them not to participate in the production of drugs such as fentanyl.
“I asked the cabinet and there is no information about this. Yesterday I asked Paulina why there is a series, right?, about what happens, I don’t know in which state of Mexico. There is a well-known series that received many awards from a chemistry professor in the United States that defends this, I saw some episodes, I didn’t see it in its entirety to be honest, but maybe they took it from there because we don’t have information. In any case, to the chemistry students, don’t get involved in that, in the fentanyl crisis,” he said this Monday.
The president of Mexico indicated that among the efforts to combat fentanyl, her administration will implement an information campaign about the effects of consuming that substance.
“I asked that we do an informative series, with what we have from the sections in La Mañanera, about the opioid crisis. Since opioid consumption in the United States. It is a product of pharmaceutical companies, there are documents, it is recognized by associations of how some pain medications already used chemical opioids or that have a similar chemical composition to opioids,” he commented.
Part of this campaign will have the purpose of calling on young people not to consume these types of drugs.
