FBI Dir. Patel Warns Mexican Cartels Importing Drugs: 'You're Coming Here To Face American Justice'

Forbes Breaking News

During Wednesday’s House Appropriations Committee hearing, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) questioned FBI Director Kash Patel about his work to counter drug trafficking by Mexican cartels.

Transcript

00:01And I yield.

00:02I yield, Mr. Chairman.

00:08I think we are ready to wrap up here,

00:13but I will yield myself three minutes in closing.

00:18Mr. Director, the drug war killing our beautiful young people,

00:32but we got a bit of a ray of hope in the last couple of weeks.

00:37The CDC now says that overdose deaths from opioids decreased 30% in the last year.

00:52That's the good news.

00:55The bad news is 70% of that was fentanyl, overdose deaths from fentanyl.

01:02I was happy to see the news story over the last couple of days

01:10of the very successful seizure and arrest in the West of the U.S.

01:20of fentanyl seizures.

01:28The cartels.

01:32The drugs are bad, but they have to have this national,

01:38international organization in place

01:41infiltrating every metropolitan area in the U.S. and otherwise.

01:48Cartels.

01:50Tell us what you're doing

01:52or plan to do

01:54to get at the cartels

01:58and destroy the system

02:00that's bringing these poison pills home.

02:03That's just it, Mr. Chairman.

02:05So, in the first couple of months since we took over,

02:07we just two months ago,

02:09no, one month ago,

02:10extradited 29 Mexican national cartel figures out of Mexico.

02:14So, what we're doing is going down there to Mexico

02:17and saying,

02:18if you're going to import drugs and kill our children,

02:20you're coming here to face American justice.

02:22And that was just one trip.

02:23We've had three since I've been in the seat.

02:25That's part one of the issue,

02:27taking the fight down to the cartels in Mexico

02:30to the extent that the FBI can.

02:32We're partnering with our intel community partners

02:34and ultimately with the Department of Defense

02:36and what the administration decides is appropriate

02:38to take further action there.

02:40But that is still being worked out.

02:43Overseas, one of the things I'd like to highlight,

02:45and I'm glad that we were able to get this in,

02:47is the fentanyl is killing our children and our youth.

02:52But no one is looking at the precursor machines

02:55and factories in mainland China.

02:57We are.

02:58We started that the day I hit the seat.

03:01And I did not accept the answer

03:02that whack-a-mole is how you do it.

03:04Because if you take down one,

03:06then another 50 gets stood up.

03:08We're going to take down one plus the 50

03:09and the 100 after that.

03:11But what we need is an all-of-government approach

03:13to focus on the precursor shipping in mainland China.

03:16Because if you stop that

03:17and you stop the shipments going to our allied nations,

03:21such as Canada and Mexico and South America,

03:24then you stop their ability,

03:26the cartels' ability to make fentanyl.

03:29And that's my big push at the FBI on the fentanyl crisis.

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