On Monday, the Colombian Police reported that authorities extradited a citizen to the United States for the first time for distributing fentanyl between 2017 and 2019 in the states of Pennsylvania and New York.
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"After exhaustive police cooperation work, the first extradition by the National Government of the Colombian citizen Dabinsson Niño Meyer was carried out from the city of Bogota to the United States," the Police said.
Niño Meyer and his organization were responsible for distributing large quantities of fentanyl over three years. The 39-year-old detainee must answer in the United States for the crimes of drug trafficking, distribution and possession of fentanyl.
The man was arrested for extradition purposes by the Colombian Police in 2022 in a rural area of the municipality of Acacías, in the department of Meta.
The Colombian Police seized 1,439 vials of fentanyl in 2022 and 1,281 vials so far this year. Most of the vials were seized in the departments of Sucre, Risaralda, Antioquia, Bolívar, Valle del Cauca, and Norte de Santander.
"There is fentanyl in Colombia. We know it is being consumed. However, there is no evidence that it is being manufactured in the country," Justice Minister Nestor Osuna said.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than morphine and the cause of the worst drug crisis in the history of the U.S., where over 70,000 people died from overdoses in 2022.
According to the administration of President Joe Biden, the Mexican cartels of Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation produce fentanyl in clandestine laboratories using chemicals they legally acquire from China.