“You are good at what you do. I would have a proposition for you.” That’s how Mexican cartel recruiters choose and hire chemistry students, fishing them directly from Mexican universities to produce fentanyl. That’s the new trend reported by the New York Times, according to which laboratories for the drug, which killed 74,702 people in 2023 in the U.S. alone, are recruiting more experienced young chemists in training to boost the product to make “Americans more addicted” and to be able to synthesize the precursors, the chemical compounds underlying fentanyl currently imported from China.
In a lengthy investigation, the New York Times interviewed seven “cooks” (those who make the drug), three chemistry students enlisted by the Sinaloa cartel, the most powerful in Mexico and one of the main culprits behind the arrival of fentanyl in the United States according to the U.S. government, two agents, a recruiter and a university professor, all under anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Young chemists are lured by recruiters, who study their prey for weeks, observing them from afar and talking to family members, friends, and acquaintances. The ideal candidate must be passionate about the subject, practical and discreet, unfazed by the idea of creating a lethal product. The offer is more than tempting: more than $800 a month—nearly twice what a chemist is paid in any Mexican company—often even paid in advance, house or car in case the lab makes research breakthroughs, knowing that there is an extremely needy and poor family behind it.
The university professor interviewed said he began to outline a common thread that he observed in a number of students: during his lectures, some explicitly asked that they wanted to learn how to synthesize cocaine and other compounds needed to produce drugs, including precursors. The production process is much more difficult and requires high-level chemical skills currently known only from Chinese laboratories, the main suppliers to Mexican cartels.
However, with the Covid-19 pandemic, the supply chain has slowed dramatically, with China beginning to restrict chemical exports and the Mexican government putting measures in place to stop imports. Because of this, cartels are targeting young chemists to find the precursor formula and become independent.
“It is unclear how widespread the recruitment of students is,” writes the New York Times. “If the labs succeeded in synthesizing the precursors, a new era would begin, in which Mexican cartels would have total control over one of the deadliest drugs in recent history.”
