JAMESTOWN-A member of New York’s Drug Enforcement Administration says the influence of Mexican drug cartels is being felt in every city and town across Upstate New York.
“Mexican drug gangs have taken over transportation routes from the Colombians that had already established the drug trafficking organizations within the cities within the United States to include Upstate New York,” said David Zon, Assistant Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Albany.
“If there’s drugs out in the streets in cities and towns across the United States, more than likely it came in through Mexico and the Mexican drug organizations are the ones that have those routes established to get those drugs in,” Zon told WNYNewsNow.
Agent Zon discussed how heroin-related deaths more than tripled between 2010 and 2015, with almost 13,000 deaths in 2015.
He said cartels are pushing methamphetamine as well but the market is much larger for heroin.
The amount of heroin seized each year at the southwest border of the United States has quadrupled since 2008, according to the DEA.