Justice Department watchdog to review DEA tactic that permitted deadly fentanyl to hit streets

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department’s internal watchdog on Monday announced a review of a controversial tactic in which federal law enforcement allowed fentanyl to hit the streets to build bigger cases against drug traffickers.

The review will examine government policies and wiretap investigations in which the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration may have learned of fentanyl deliveries before they happened but stood down to avoid jeopardizing larger prosecutions.

Current and former agents said that investigative strategy — known as allowing drugs to “walk” — amounts to a gamble with public safety and may have violated Justice Department rules intended to safeguard communities from a synthetic opioid the White House last year designated as a “ weapon of mass destruction.”

The review comes less than two months after an Associated Press investigation found DEA agents repeatedly monitored — but did not seize — major fentanyl shipments in New Mexico between 2023 and 2025. It was disclosed in a news release by Justice Department Inspector General Don Berthiaume, one of his first official actions since being sworn in on Friday.

The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. DEA Administrator Terry Cole requested a narrower inspector general inquiry following AP’s reporting, including a review of his agency’s handling of a whistleblower complaint brought by Agent David Howell.

Cole wrote in an earlier statement that his request for an outside inquiry “should not be interpreted as reflecting any lack of confidence in the professionalism or integrity of DEA personnel.”

Howell told AP that federal authorities “poisoned our community to make cases” in New Mexico. An internal DEA report reviewed by AP detailed how the DEA watched and declined to interdict a fentanyl delivery of 74,000 pills in a mobile home park in Albuquerque.

The fentanyl went unseized amid the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history and as DEA led a public awareness campaign — “One Pill Can Kill” — emphasizing that even a few milligrams of the substance can be lethal.

The inspector general said the review will focus on the Justice Department’s actions over the past two years. It could determine whether the DEA permitted similar drug shipments to occur in other cities.

Howell said he expects the review to show federal authorities “endangered the public through willful inaction.”

The new review comes as New Mexico authorities continue an investigation into whether DEA agents broke state law by allowing hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach the streets of Albuquerque. Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, recently threatened to sue the Justice Department after it refused to provide a list of records he requested. The DEA also has not allowed Howell to be interviewed by state authorities.

“The state is bearing the societal and financial harms of an influx of fentanyl into its communities,” Torrez wrote in a letter to federal authorities earlier this month.

Two additional DEA whistleblowers in New Mexico have come forward in recent weeks, including one who said his colleagues there failed to seize 350,000 fentanyl pills that they learned about during the very first call they intercepted in a 2024 wiretap. That shipment was part of an investigation that resulted in the largest fentanyl seizure in DEA history. Court records show agents had the opportunity to seize thousands of fentanyl pills but allowed trafficking to continue for months as they investigated.

The other whistleblower filed a complaint this month alleging his colleagues monitored — but did not arrest — a drug courier who made repeated deliveries of fentanyl from Phoenix to Albuquerque between 2022 and 2023. Agents estimated each delivery to contain between 50,000 and 100,000 fentanyl pills that went unseized.

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Goodman reported from Miami.