Authorities say they seized 50,000 kilograms of chemicals at the Port of Long Beach that were bound for Mexico, where they’d be used to produce methamphetamine and other illicit narcotics.
On Friday, agents captured the more than 110,000-pound haul of di-cumyl peroxide, a precursor chemical for meth, as it was on its way from China to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Since 2019, when ICE launched an initiative aimed at cracking down on suspicious shipments, authorities have seized more than 1.7 million kilograms of chemicals used to produce methamphetamine and fentanyl, authorities said.
In March, authorities seized almost 44,000 kilograms of glacial acetic acid at the Port of Houston, which was also a chemical precursor headed for the Sinaloa Cartel, authorities said.
“For far too long, the Mexican drug cartels have raked in billions of dollars at the expense of our local communities, leaving nothing but addiction, death and despair in their wake,” ICE Homeland Security Investigations Houston Special Agent in Charge Chad Plantz said in a statement.
Since the start of the year, 13 drug labs operated by the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel have been found and eliminated in conjunction with Mexican authorities, according to ICE.
The illicit seizure is not the first to make headlines this year in Long Beach.
In mid-April, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized 749 cartons of illegally imported cigarettes from two women arriving on a cruise ship from Ensenada, Mexico.