DEA Agent Says the Agency Let Millions of Fentanyl Pills 'Walk' Onto New Mexico Streets
Special Agent David Howell, still on active duty, told CBS News he warned managers for three years. New Mexico's attorney general is suing, and the Justice Department inspector general is investigating.
A veteran Drug Enforcement Administration agent says his own agency has helped feed the fentanyl crisis in New Mexico by allowing the deadly pills to reach the streets. "For three years, I've told my DEA managers that we're allowing dangerous amounts of fentanyl to hit the street, and we're doing nothing to stop it, and they didn't listen to me," DEA Special Agent David Howell told CBS News in his first television interview.
Howell, who is still an active agent, alleges the DEA has let millions of fentanyl pills "walk." In that tactic, investigators allow traffickers to distribute their product and then follow the trail to build bigger cases. Because fentanyl is so lethal, Howell says the approach has done more harm than good. "We at the DEA have let drugs hit the street, yes," he said. "The difference was we were told not to with fentanyl."
He described a 2023 operation in Albuquerque. Howell's team was tracking a suspect from the air, and images obtained by CBS News from House Oversight Committee investigators showed a person driving a white SUV and picking up a child. "We knew we weren't going to let the drugs hit the streets or go to the house when we knew the kid was in the car," Howell said. Agents in a black truck stopped the SUV, secured the child and detained the suspect. "We took his drugs. We took his gun. It was in a little compartment underneath the seat that the child was sitting on."
Howell says he expected praise from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico. "Instead, they brought us into their office and chastised us," he said. "They were perfectly willing to allow that fentanyl to go to the house with the kid."
His whistleblower complaint was first reported last June by The Associated Press and the Albuquerque Journal. It has since drawn the attention of congressional investigators and state officials. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has sued the federal government over the practice of letting fentanyl walk. "There's no escaping the conclusion that New Mexico moving in the wrong direction seems to be directly connected to this practice of walking fentanyl in this community," Torrez said.
Local officials say the stakes are immediate. Authorities in the wider Albuquerque area have declared a state of emergency because of rising numbers of fentanyl overdose calls.
The DEA and the Justice Department declined CBS News' request for an interview. The Justice Department did provide a statement saying that when Howell came forward, DEA Administrator Cole "immediately requested an independent investigation by DOJ IG," and that the inquiry is still open. The agency has also said that "if improvements are identified, DEA will implement them." Neither statement addresses Howell's specific allegations.
Howell said he went public because of what he sees in the city. "Our city is being destroyed by this drug," he said. "That's why we're sitting here, and that's what I'm here to tell the people." The inspector general's findings will determine whether the allegations are borne out.
