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The Threat of Illegal Fentanyl

An Interview with Derek Maltz
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Richard Helppie
Welcome to the Common Bridge, we have a very important topic today that is not getting much coverage in the news, and that is the rising tide of fentanyl and other derivatives that are entering the United States, that are literally poisoning our youth in their bedrooms. How does this happen? When did it start? What's it about? And more importantly, what can we do about it? And we have with us today an expert in the field, Mr. Derek Maltz. Derek, welcome to the Common Bridge. I'm really happy that you're with us today.

Derek Maltz
Thanks for inviting me Rich. Look forward to the discussion.

Richard Helppie
Great. So just to give the audience a little bit of your background, maybe, you know, where were some of your early days and, and what has your career been like in law enforcement?

Derek Maltz

So Rich, my father was a dedicated DEA agent for about 30 years. I went to college-- right out of college-- 22 year old, I got involved in the DEA. I started my career working in Long Island, New York, I worked my way up, became a supervisor in the New York drug enforcement task force in Manhattan. I then went later on to Washington, was assigned to the Special Operations Division. And then I went back to New York to become an Assistant Special Agent in Charge, the New York field division. Got promoted to be in charge of the task force in New York, which is the task force my father ran for 11 years. And then I eventually in 2005, went back to Virginia to the Special Operations Division, and I took over as the Agent in Charge in 2005. I worked there till the end of my career. When I got there, there were nine agencies, when I left were 30-- to include three countries and the NYPD.

Richard Helppie
So you've been looking at drug enforcement for a very long time, and I imagine that's changed over the years; what type of substances that we're looking to control, and maybe where in along from the manufacturer to the distributor to the small time dealer to the user, you were trying to intercept that. Have things changed?

Derek Maltz

Absolutely. When I first started on the job, obviously, the Colombian cartels were sending mass amounts of cocaine, primarily into five hub cities, Miami, New York, Chicago, LA and Houston, and then from those hub cities, they would distribute the drugs, collect the money, and they were making, you know, billions of dollars for many years. You know, Medellin cartel, the Cali cartel, the north by cartel, and they expanded but over time, they realized there was so much risk involved in sending drugs to America because we were extraditing so many of the kingpins and putting them in jail for life--massive jail sentences-- so they started recognizing it was less risky to send the drugs to the Mexican cartels, who would then distribute all the drugs in America. The Colombian cartel started pushing dope around the world. They started going to West Africa and Europe, Asia, other countries, and they realized there was more money to be made and less risk of going to jail. So they were very smart. And the cartels started taking over the business operations. And now of course, the Mexican cartels control all drug distribution in America in regards to methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and now of course, the poison is fentanyl.

Richard Helppie

I've had guests on my program and other people I've talked to on background talk about the Mexican cartels. And they said, Look, these are big logistic companies, they'll move drugs, they'll move contraband and they'll move human beings-- doesn't really matter what the cargo is and what the payload is-- if there's a shipper on one side and someone to receive it on the other side, they're very effective at eluding our border protections. Is that accurate?

Derek Maltz

Yeah, so I wouldn't even call them the Mexican drug cartels anymore. They're really Mexican transnational criminals or terrorists, in my opinion, because they're killing more Americans than any terrorist organization in the history of the country, as far as I know. And they will do anything to make money. And you're exactly right. You know, right now, the migrant smuggling is making them billions of dollars. And they're moving people, they're doing child trafficking, they're involved with drug trafficking. They're moving all types of contraband into America, and facilitating other criminal groups because nobody comes across the Mexican border without the cartels' approval. And that means without paying them, you're not getting across the border or you're taking a big chance on your life.

Richard Helppie

So somebody that wants to migrate outside of the law, they not only have to brave the enforcement on the U.S. side of the border, if they don't go through the cartel, they're risking their life by taking revenue away from the cartels.

Derek Maltz

Right. Absolutely. I mean, you may have seen this on some of the news shows, but right now the cartels are very organized. They're giving the families and the kids wristbands, different colored wristbands in Mexico so they can keep track of how much money is owed to them. Because right now, I mean, you may pay maybe as little as $3,000 to get across, but in some cases, it could be fiften, twenty thousand or more, depending on what country they're coming from. And what a lot of people don't realize is in America today, at the border, we have folks from over like 150 countries around the world coming in, and they're all paying the cartels.

Richard Helppie

And these are Mexican or Mexico-based cartels exclusively? Are there other (Derek: Yes) Okay, so there, they indeed are a cartel with control of the trafficking of human beings and narcotics and other things over that border. You know, what's amazing to me as a civilian, we know so much about them. Are they that powerful that all the resources of the United States can't stop it or intercept it or disrupt it? Or are we doing our job?

Derek Maltz

Great question. First of all, they're very powerful. They're very dangerous. They're equipped, like the greatest military in the world. They have the latest and greatest technology, and they have an unlimited budget. They don't have a bureaucracy, but they also have very corrupt government officials that work closely with them in Mexico, in Central America, and help facilitate their operations. And when they go to West Africa as an example, they're working with corrupt military officials and corrupt government officials over there as well, because they're paying a lot of money for these officials to come on a payroll.

Richard Helppie

Right. And so that's a requirement, you're not going to be a successful criminal organization, without having corrupt government officials working on your payroll.

Does that include the United States that we have corrupt government officials on our payroll? Or is it something else?

Derek Maltz

Well, corruption is everywhere. I mean, look, corruption is around the world. And people make individual choices. But yeah, we have corruption here also, Richard, no doubt about it.

Richard Helppie

That's of course disturbing that what we're trying to do on this show is try to get the issues out, define them and say what the solution might be. Fentanyl, now I know fentanyl is a very powerful drug. It's a great painkiller. I have a little bit of experience in the healthcare industry, not as a clinical person, I'm careful to always point out, but the people that handle the fentanyl in a healthcare setting are oftentimes special teams-- two, three people on a team-- it's not something that a doctor can order and a nurse can administer because it is so powerful. What can you tell us about the drug itself? Is it protected that way because of addictive qualities or because of the lethality of it, or is it something else?

Derek Maltz

Well, I'm not a doctor Richard, I mean, quite frankly, prior to like 2005 or 2006, I really didn't know much about fentanyl. It wasn't until the Mexican cartels started trying to make fentanyl in labs in Toluca, Mexico, and there were several individuals who died in the Chicago area, and it became a crisis for law enforcement because people were dying and I started learning a little bit more about fentanyl. Obviously, it's a very powerful synthetic opioid that's used for pain in hospitals and they have patches. But I can tell you that you know, I started paying attention when I saw Americans dying in 2005-2006. The DEA and Chicago did a great job with the Mexican officials, they shut down the lab, and it kind of went away. But then we started seeing synthetic drugs coming from China back in like 2008/2009/ 2010, and at the time, it was synthetic cannabinoids instead of synthetic cathinones. Like we call that K2 spice, synthetic marijuana, and there were bath salts, and we had a lot of crazy incidents happening in America, where young Americans were having psychotic episodes and respiratory issues and they were going into the emergency rooms, there was an increase in poison centers being called and then I started paying a lot more attention to it as well and realize they were coming from Chinese Wu Han-style labs, where they were making these synthetic drugs and they were hurting our Americans. So we had several initiatives back around 2012-2011, going against these synthetic drug operations and putting the poison in American streets. And then the administration started putting pressure on China. But what happened was, the next thing we saw was deadly fentanyl showing up on the streets in New England, and in Florida, and we started seeing lots of Americans dying. And the autopsy reports were coming back as fentanyl. And this is something that I didn't know much about, Richard and the U.S. government, and as far as I'm concerned, I worked in a in a hub of operations for multiple agencies, we really didn't know a lot about it. And we started learning around 2012, that this fentanyl was hitting the streets all over America, and the cartel started getting involved, as well.

Richard Helppie

So if I understand what you're telling me, this is not like, okay, drugs were manufactured for a good purpose, they were stolen, and then, you know, distributed through illegal networks. This was manufactured in China, presumably with the approval of the Chinese government, shipped to Mexico, where the cartels got it and then distributed into American cities is that it?

Derek Maltz

Let me clarify. So there was an evolution. At first, we started seeing exclusively in China, being sold on the internet in the dark web operations where kids in America were just ordering pure fentanyl, directly from China and U.S. mail services, and Federal Express and these other mail entities were shipping these these drugs from all over the world, from Chinese labs right into American households.

Richard Helppie

So for a controlled substance, someone could go on, I don't know…

Derek Maltz
Right, but many of these, many of these chemical substances were not considered controlled, certainly not in China, and even in our country, because of the way they were making them and the analogues they were using. And again, I'm not an expert on what was control what wasn't control, but it was primarily being sold in the dark web and the internet, and in China, it wasn't apparently illegal to export these substances. But kids were dying and the American government started paying more attention to it. Over time, they started putting pressure on China. So they were putting pressure not only on the synthetic cannabinoids and cathinones, but now the synthetic fentanyl that was killing at record levels. So what happened was the Chinese started getting smart, they started to exporting bulk quantities of this substance from China to Mexico to the cartels. And it was selling it for like three to five thousand dollars a kilogram. And the Mexican cartel started realizing this was such a profitable market for them, because they no longer had to get involved with the entire heroin production process, with the opium and the poppy, and the weather and the farmers and the you know, destruction of their poppy fields, so they realize buying this stuff and mixing it into these substances in Mexico was a hell of a lot more profitable. And they realized how it was so addicting. So what happened was the cartel started really getting heavily involved with getting the substances directly from China, and then over time, they started importing chemists, and they started making these fentanyl substances themselves. But here's where it gets interesting, because of the pressure that the previous administration put on the Chinese government, they started reducing the exports, certainly into America and even the pure fentanyl into Mexico. What they were doing was increasing the exports of the precursor chemicals that were required to produce fentanyl. Now you got to remember, Richard, the Chinese transnational criminals have like a 30-year relationship with the Mexican cartels for precursor chemicals. When they make methamphetamine in labs in Mexico, a lot of the chemicals come from the Chinese transnational criminals and other Asian countries, as well. But they need those precursor chemicals to make these poisonous drugs. That's why not only are we seeing fentanyl poisonings off the chart, we're seeing methamphetamine production and distribution in our countrym also off the charts.

Richard Helppie
That is just astonishing. If I understood this correctly, so the Chinese were manufacturing the synthetic fentanyl, the prior administration, Trump administration put pressure on them. They said okay, we won't do that. But instead they shipped the component parts--the chemicals-- to the Mexican cartels through an established supply chain that they had used before for methamphetamine. (Derek: Exactly.) And the Mexican cartels then said we'll do the final assembly and, and shipping. (Derek: Right.) How long has this stuff been going on? I mean, if it took 30 years for that supply chain to grow, we're talking about what back to the George W. Bush administration or how far back are we looking?

Derek Martz

Do the math. I'm not exactly sure. But you're talking at least 30 years with the chemicals. This is nothing new; precursor chemicals coming out of China has been going on forever. But I'll give you an example. Just to give you an idea on how we knew this was really exploding. In 2007, there was a seizure of $207,000,000 in a house in Mexico City. It was in the house of a Chinese businessman who is importing chemicals from China into Mexico and providing them to the cartels for the production of meth. Now, let me just make sure this is clear. The seizure was probably the largest cash seizure in the history of the world, in a drug case, as far as I know. It was all one hundred dollar denominations, and they had some euros as well. And this guy, the businessman, was living in Las Vegas, he was gambling money, like you can't even imagine. And it and again, if they if they declared 207 million, just imagine how much was actually in the house that wasn't declared when the when the Mexican, you know, military and the police and everyone was there. And that that's just the way it is, right? But here's the thing: that opened my eyes as the head of S.O.D. that was 2007. Look at how many chemicals are being pushed into Mexico for the production of meth. This was before I even realized it was the production of fentanyl as well. (Rich: What is S.O.D.?) S.O.D. is the Special Operations Division. It's a component of DEA, it's under the Department of Justice. Like I said, when I got there, there were nine agencies, we grew the place into thirty agencies, three countries, NYPD trying to synchronize the operations to help support investigators from all these agencies and departments around America and even around the world to go after transnational crime threats. So the cartels obviously, were our number one threat because they were on the southern border, and they were poisoning our country for many years with these, these deadly drugs. So we learned a lot over the years. But what's really frightening now is not only are they mixing the fentanyl and cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, they're making the deadly counterfeit pills in labs in Mexico, and importing or exporting the pills all over our country. But another thing that the public doesn't realize is they're also making powder. Whether it's heroin, whether it's another mixture of other substances, but they're putting fentanyl in this powder and sending that powder to their distribution networks in the country. They're buying the pill presses on the internet. They're making the pills in our backyard, all over this country. And those pills are deadly. The DEA administrator several weeks ago did a press announcement-- a national emergency warning-- they've already seized 9.5 million pills this year alone, probably over 10 million by now. And they have determined and this is the most important thing. Richard 40% of the pills that they analyzed, that was seized in their possession, had a lethal dose of fentanyl. One kilogram of fentanyl can kill 500,000 people. (Rich: It's like a massive...) terrorist chemical weapon attack on our country. That's what it is.

Richard Helppie

There was a sheriff's deputy, I believe, that had made kind of a routine traffic stop, if you will, and there was fentanyl powder under the tailgate. I don't know if he had to breathe it in or if it was just skin contact, but if there were not other officers responding with Narcan he'd have been dead. A big, healthy man was on the ground in seconds, the body cam showed that. Are you familiar with that story?

Derek Maltz

Right, I saw that video was out in San Diego, I saw the video. And we've seen other videos that are similar. And obviously law enforcement's on the front lines trying to protect the public and these things can happen. This is a deadly substance. I'm not a doctor. So I don't know what happens when your skin touches to fentanyl. I'm not really familiar with that. What I do know is kids as young as 12 years old, are going on social media, ordering up these pills and dying instantly. And their parents are finding them dead every day.

Richard Helppie

Is there any way to get a measure of the magnitude that are we losing two kids a day five kids a day?

Derek Maltz

No, no, no, we have a very good idea. So here's an example. The CDC statistics at the end of 2020 revealed approximately 93,331 dead Americans from drug overdoses. Now, that means 255 a day were dying, and you know if you look at those statistics alone. The recent CDC statistics just came out that show a 12-month period from March of 2020 through March of 2021 and they're revealing about 97,000 dead Americans and they're also estimating because these are provisional numbers, that 99,000 have died over the last 12 months ending March of 2021. A couple of very important statistics: the coroner's office in Franklin County, Ohio has revealed that 85% of those overdoses were fentanyl related in the first six months of 2020. The San Diego County just released last month, the latest statistics over the last five years, they've seen an increase of 1300% fentanyl-related deaths from 2016 to 2020. And also Orange County reported a similar increase of 1,067% increase in deaths. So it's escalating everywhere. The mainstream media is not reporting it, the politicians are staying away from it. Meanwhile, I'm dealing with families all over this country participating in rallies, listening to their stories, and all they wanted was a warning about this fentanyl because most people don't even know what it is.

Richard Helppie

How would a family, let's say someone has a 12-year-old in the house or a couple of teenagers, and if they can order this on line or on social media, my experience is that most young people of that age are light years ahead of their parents and their grandparents in terms of technology. (Derek: Yes, absolutely.) What's a parent to do to protect their children?

Derek Maltz
Well, the DEA Administrator, as part of our September 30th warning to the public, made it very clear that the social media companies are enhancing the cartels' ability to put these poisonous drugs in the hands of these young kids. So the message has gone out; hopefully the Congress and others in government will put some more pressure on social media companies. But in the meantime, every kid that's out there that has the smartphones are up in their bedroom, they're on all these different social media sites, maybe they're doing homework in between, maybe they're watching movies, maybe they're playing games, that's what kids do. Richard, you go out to dinner with kids, they don't talk anymore. They're on the phones, everyone knows that. They're texting their friends, they're sending funny memes and stuff like that. But what's dangerous is when kids are up in their bedroom, and the parents think that they're doing homework, they could be ordering these fake pills. Like they think they're getting Xanax, they think they're getting an oxycodone. They think they're getting a Percocet or Vicodin. And in reality, what they're getting is a substance that that looks very similar, that's coming from labs in Mexico, and the chemicals are coming from China. And our kids are dying at record levels. They're destroying our future generation. And nobody's talking about it.

Richard Helppie
So let's break down that business model. If I'm a purveyor of narcotics, I want to hook my customer but I don't want to kill them, so... (Derek: Yes. 100%) I don't understand why would they make fatal doses? Wouldn't they want that child to be ordering more?

Derek Maltz
Great question. That's the number one question I get all the time. So you got to realize that the Mexican cartels only care about one thing: making as much money as they can. They do not care about the American lives, they do not care that these kids are dying. They care about their business operations and right now it's exploding off the charts. They're making billions of dollars. Now what's happening is because it's so cheap for them to buy or make the fentanyl and because it's so potent, they can put it in these other substances, and they don't have to, they don't have to worry about it, because this stuff is really addicting, and addictive, right. So when a kid takes this stuff, they don't always die. You know, there might be a better mixture, you know, less potent, okay, but they don't have FDA-certified chemists mixing this stuff either Richard, and I don't think they realize yet and they will perfect and do much better. But here's what I just told you remember, they're shipping the powder into these facilities all over our country, in people's houses, these drug distribution networks, they have no way to determine how much fentanyl is in this powder. They're making the pills, they don't know. So we're giving them too much credit. All they know is that customers are lining up at these retail spots for their pills, for their heroin, for their meth, for their cocaine. That's all that they know, business is going through the roof. Now on the other hand, the Chinese transnational criminals, there are many that believe including myself, I cannot prove it in a courtroom, but based on circumstantial evidence, and the unrestricted warfare model that's based in China with the Communist Party. This is a very easy plan that's being executed by the Chinese because they're killing off our future generation. The Mexican cartels are doing the dirty work right now, by doing the actual manufacturing and distribution of the poison. And China's sitting back, making money and watching America suffer. And this is their plan. They can't bomb our country right now. They're not going to send armies into the streets of America and start shooting up people, but they can engage in this chemical weapon attack, and use the cartels to execute their plan. And that's what I believe is happening.

Richard Helppie
Let me let me just make sure I have this full circle. So you have the money starts with the end user in United States of America, that goes to someone in the United States that's using the powder, to press pills, that they have uncertain quality on it to be mild about it, that powder is coming from Mexico, shipped by the Mexican cartels and the base chemicals are coming from Chinese transnational criminals that are shipping it in. So the money goes from the end user in the United States, to the packagers, if you will in the U.S. to the cartels, back to China.

Derek Maltz
So what's brand new, it's only been a few years now, it's new to me, but I've learned a lot. So guess who now has taken over the money laundering services for the Mexican cartels, the Chinese transnational criminals. So what they've done is they they send these guys that sit in Mexico City with the cartels, and then when there's a pickup to be made in Chicago, let's say for a million dollars cash. So the drug organization has a million dollars in cash, instead of going to the banks and putting the money in the banks and, and creating a racket and a paper trail for law enforcement, they turn the million dollars over to a bunch of Chinese national, young kids, students that are here legally to go to college, those students are picking up duffel bags and suitcases of cash, bringing the cash to Chinese businessmen in this country that are in need of cash. Because there's there's export laws in China, you can only bring $50,000 of cash out of Beijing. So they get the cash here in America, they use their banking apps and their encrypted communications with WeChat and WePay and they send money from one Chinese business account for that million dollars. So here's how it works, I get the million dollars, I get on my phone, I send Richard a million dollars from my bank account in China to Richard's bank account in China. So I've just moved the money from one Chinese account to Richard. Richard then goes and buys a million dollars worth of consumer goods, because he has a business that does computer sales, t shirts, sneakers, toys, right? Richard then puts together a one million dollar order. And he ships it to Mexico, they get this they get the container, they sell the 1 million of goods for two million dollars. They take a million dollars and give it to the cartels. So they just laundered the money, and the money is not even going through the US banking system. So that's creating another problem for law enforcement, because now China, the Chinese criminals are providing two critical services, the money laundering and the chemicals, because without the money laundering, and without the chemicals, the cartels can't kill our kids. So you see how it's getting more and more complex, right?

Richard Helppie
Remember, I am a civilian here, but I do know that throughout the course of the history in the country, we took on gangs in the 1940's, and we took on the Colombian cartels. This sounds far worse--and not only for the current amount of havoc that's being brought upon the country--the rails, if you will to put the next thing on-- the next product.

Derek Maltz
Right. Exactly. And that's what I saw the evolution from the synthetic drugs that were being made in the labs in China, the K2 and the spice and the bath salts-- as soon as that became a problem for the Chinese, they switched to fentanyl-- and then they switch to the chemicals, and they've been doing the chemicals with the cartels forever. Now, by the way, I don't know if you know this, but when we talk about the meth labs in Mexico today, some of those labs like this one lab my friends visited in DEA, seven tons of meth being produced in three days. That's what's hitting the streets not only in America, but around the world. The cartels are not just poisoning America with their drugs, they're sending drugs around the world, Now they're building up market share throughout the world, they're undercutting their competition. And like I said, they're making billions but what's helping their operations is the current migrant crisis. They're making so much more money now on the migrants coming to America, and they're making so much money from the human trafficking and the other stuff going on in the border. So business is booming. But Richard, to be honest with the worst part about it is the public's not being informed. So thank you for at least trying to get the message out. Because it's really something that should be public service announcements. Families need to know that their kids could be up in the bedroom, buying poison on Snapchat, or Instagram, or one of the social media, you know, locations, right? So we have to really educate the public, because the families that I deal with, they're all saying the same thing. I wish I had a warning. I wish I could have educated my kids. Why didn't anybody tell me about this. And by the way, let me make something really clear to your listeners. What I'm talking about is not a red or a blue issue. It's a red, white and blue issue. It's impacting everyone in America, all socio economic backgrounds, all races, all colors. It doesn't matter. Matter of fact, I was at a rally in Maryland for the African American community, and they were explaining to me how they just get left in the dark, like nobody's even talking about it in that community. And there's reports that are being put out now, how the African American communities are being hit the hardest. There was one report on NPR news that showed that in the years 2018 to 2019, there was a 38% increase in fentanyl deaths in the African American community. So again, this can't be politicized. It's a national security situation. Remember, back in 1982, when the Tylenol was poisoned with cyanide, and it was seven Americans that died in Chicago. And every day, when you went on to the news, whether it was a print or watching TV, you saw the Tylenol poisoning scandal, and they did recalls and everyone in America knew about it. Now we're losing 250, 260, 270 kids a day, and nobody's even talking about it. And the government is still misleading the public by talking about opioid overdoses. No, this is not overdoses. This is murders, poisoning and drug-induced homicides, much different than what we dealt with in the past.

Richard Helppie
I think the parallel with the Tylenol, which I think some at the root of that if memory serves me correctly, I don't remember who the perp was on this, but it was a spouse trying to kill their spouse and make it look like it was just a broader issue. But after that, yeah, we had all the caps on over the counter meds and you know, all the seals and that type of thing. Since these things are not being, you know, sold at CVS, or Walgreens or Rite Aid, when we can't get to the packaging, what's the attack points in order to stop this? What should our law enforcement and government be doing to address this problem?

Derek Maltz
Great question. So number one, I literally have been talking about declaring the Mexican cartels as a terrorist organization for several years now. As a matter of fact, I went to Ohio and testified in the Congress and the Senate in Ohio, along with a mother who lost her daughter, and a national news reporter, who came out, as well. And the Congress voted in a very bipartisanm, unanimous, almost unanimous vote, to put the pressure on the government in Washington to declare the cartels as terrorists. This was under the Trump administration and never happened for a variety of reasons. But the concept is, since they're killing more Americans than any terrorist organization in the world, and the younger generation is getting targeted, let's put the best and brightest in law enforcement in the DOD, the Department of Defense, and the Intelligence community, and use all the authorities in the capabilities that we have, and start shutting down the production labs in Mexico, shutting down the flow of the poisonous chemicals coming from China and other countries, and also attack the finances, attack the finances like they've never been attacked before. But we can only do this if we get the government's support, and we get the government focused. Right now we're not focused. We're relying on talking points from 10 years ago--like over prescribing is old news-- yeah, there are doctors that are still trying to make a buck and they're doing this prescription stuff. But in reality, the sad part, Richard is that there are people in America suffering with dramatic pain that can't even get opioids now! The government has done a good job of cracking down at the overprescribing, but now unfortunately, many professional doctors are afraid to give the patients these pills.

Richard Helppie
You know, Derek, what's really tragic about this, and this is one of the reasons I'm doing this show and our audience is growing-- although we don't have 60 Minutes numbers...yet, I like to think...but but if you look at our partisanship has gotten to the point where with the reds get in power, or the blues get in power, and they use the levers of government to increase their political power. Case in point, the Department of Justice says they're going to start looking at literally looking at PTA moms who show up at school board meetings, because they want to talk about the curriculum. Yet, and which is they've got, let's just say they've got 40% of the country that thinks that's a good idea, because they disagree with what those PTA moms are saying. 100% of America would say, we need to stop the manufacture and distribution of these substances, and if if the DOJ by declaring them terrorist organizations would propel us in that direction, let's do it. And let's do it without delay.

Derek Maltz
So, Richard, I don't care what they declare them. I just want to see the focus and the resources applied to them. I know that the Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, had a press conference on September 30, with the DEA Administrator, Anne Milgram. They both did a very good job. They said all the right things. The Deputy Attorney General said that the Department of Justice's top priority is to keep our Americans safe. So now we have to hold them all accountable for delivering results. We need a plan. We can't just have press conferences, we have to have a plan. And we have to execute the plan and we have to hold people accountable. So as an example, if the DEA and the Homeland Security Investigations are the two primary law enforcement agencies in the federal government that work on cases against the Mexican cartels, they should partner up, they should get taskforces set up with other agencies that add value like ATF in the marshals, FBI, and then work with the state locals and then unite with the right people in the military, and the right people in the intel community and get a plan and then have accountability measures. What are we doing? Are we seeing a decline in deaths? The medical professionals need to get way more involved with putting out really important messages. We got to get the drug czar's office to start putting PSA's on and primetime news and TV and get some athletes. Get professional athletes from the NFL, the NHL, the NBA, the Major League Baseball, they care about kids, the kids love them, they look up to them. Let's get some athletes to do a couple commercials about the poisonous fentanyl that's going to kill you.

Richard Helppie
Some influencers and some rappers and some musicians and you know everybody's that's in there. Yeah, absolutely.

Derek Maltz
They just had the NHL player, the wife... and I just made a slide from one of my presentations. The wife said she was shocked by the Hayes death cause... Hayes was the hockey player, the Bruins... I think he played on the New Jersey Devils as well...they just determined he died from cocaine and fentanyl. And the wife was shocked. And she's in a picture with a little like two-month- old, a six-month-old baby. It's devastating. Michael Williams, the actor from "The Wire," the African American man who died, he was a great actor. So more and more actors and celebrities are going to die from this stuff, but we have to get a unity of effort with our agencies and our politicians. Let's put the politics on the side for this one. It's a national security emergency.

Richard Helppie
So would your recommendation for our listeners and viewers be this: Look whether you're represented in Congress by a Democrat, a Republican an Independent or someone else or in the United States Senate or in the state houses, call, write, email and tell them that we need to eradicate this. They need to be public about it. Politically, it's an easy win.

Derek Maltz

Yes. 100%.

Richard Helppie

Let me just ask my listeners and viewers to do just that. It's very easy to get in touch with your legislators, they all have websites and all the websites have a place for contact and tell them you want to get the fentanyl off the streets of America and out of the bedrooms of our kids and go after those that are responsible for perpetuating this. Derek, as we kind of come to a close here, anything else that you could advise our listeners and viewers to do? Or is there anything that we didn't talk about today that we probably should have?

Derek Maltz
Well, we talked about a lot, but I want to tell you one thing, just to put it in perspective. First of all, all listeners: just go watch "Dead on Arrival." It's a new documentary that's out on YouTube. It's about 16 minutes, 17 minutes long. So there's no excuse. It's very short. And there's some devastating stories that have come out from the parents about how they lost their loved ones to this poison. And I know the parents very well because I work with them. And I want to give you a quick story. So I was going down to a border meeting with sheriffs all over the southwest border to discuss the drugs and the crisis we're dealing with. And I get a package in the mail, and I open up the mail, and I get this picture of this young girl. And I get a note on the back. Derrick, please take Alex with you to Arizona. She should have been graduating from Arizona State University this year, she was killed by a single counterfeit oxycodone pill that came across our border. Thank you for everything you're doing. God bless, Alex's Dad, Matt. Now, this girl came home from her senior year break-- Christmas break. She was in her bedroom three days before Christmas. She actually went on social media, she ordered the one pill, the drug dealer came to her house, the mother found her dead in the morning. They were devastated. This is happening all over America. And Alex was like 20, but this is happening to kids, that are 12. So parents have to get involved with the schools. Like I have a question for your listeners. Is it okay to teach critical race theory to kids, but you're not teaching them about poisonous fentanyl on the internet and all over our communities? And why is the supply chain crisis escalating every day? We have boats are out there in the oceans where we can't get wood, we can't get refrigerators and freezers. But the cartels can operate with impunity, and dump, like a tsunami of poisonous drugs in our country. I think the average American would be pissed off at that, Richard, I'm pissed off as you can see, because people like this (pointing at Alex's picture) don't get a chance. Kids make mistakes. They're not supposed to die from mistakes. They're supposed to learn from mistakes. We all made mistakes, and we learn from mistakes.

Richard Helppie
Absolutely. Look, it's a far cry from you know, 50 years ago when somebody was, you know, smoking pot. Yeah, that might be a correctable action or not, right? But not something with the deadly consequences of this. And look, the part of this show, it's about being fiercely nonpartisan. And as you educate me about this, that fierce part really comes to the fore. It's like, come on Democrats, come on Republicans, come on, Independents. Come on, everybody that's got a voice here. If you're supposed to be in the news reporting business, report it. We have a real problem ahead of us, not only ahead of us, it's here today. Nobody can argue the other side of this. Nobody can argue that this is a good thing, where you take some of the other things we talked about, like what's being taught in the classrooms, people can argue one side or the other and disagree. We can evaluate what's going on with the supply chain, who's to blame, what's to be done. Those are disagreements that can be made on the facts that can be made based on the politics. That's part of a free society. But fiercely nonpartisan, can we all agree that getting rid of things that kill innocent people would be a good thing. And that is where our government needs to be focused. That's where our news reporting needs to be focused.

Derek Maltz
Richard, I couldn't agree with you more, you said it perfectly the way you articulated that. That's 100%, I'm in agreement with what you said. There's no one that can argue that allowing these poisonous substances to get into the hands of young kids is a good thing. And the numbers are just escalating every day. So we have to unite, we have to work together, we got to put aside the politics for this particular problem. Because otherwise, it's just going to continue to escalate and get worse. And unfortunately, we're all vulnerable. Anyone with kids or grandkids or nephews and nieces, everyone is vulnerable.

Richard Helppie
I'm going to look at the movie on YouTube "Dead on Arrival." I'm going to suggest that my listeners and viewers do that as well. Again, I want to encourage people to reach out to their elected officials when you hear nonsense and scare tactics, and you know, the other side is bad, and so on and so forth. Tell them great, we can have all those partisan arguments after we get on this topic that should be fiercely nonpartisan.

Derek Maltz
Okay, so to clarify what you just said. I've been doing this with the DEA for 28 years, and I still work on this so it's over 35 years now. But, in my role at the Special Operations Division, I came in under the Obama administration, in that role. I worked throughout the Trump administration in that role, right, not not in that role, but in my current role, and now currently watching what's going on in the Biden administration. Everybody has...there's enough blame to go around is what I'm saying. And that's why you just got to look at the facts and unite and work together to do something positive.

Richard Helppie
That's exactly right. It's the President of the United States-- doesn't matter what party they're for there--none of them want to see this scourge in our nation.

We've been talking today with Derek Maltz from the DEA, an expert on the topic of cartels, the infiltration of drugs into the United States and importantly what we can do about it--and we're not powerless-- those that we elect do work for us. We need to let them know it's time to start doing your job and doing it better. Those that are reporting to us need to begin to be journalists again and do their job. This is Rich Helppie with our special guest Derek Maltz, signing off, on the Common Bridge.

Transcribed by Michele Dean

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