Albuquerque DEA whistleblower alleges fentanyl sales were allowed to continue

Federal authorities allowed fentanyl sales to keep moving in New Mexico as they pursued a wiretap strategy meant to expose higher-level traffickers, a decision that put Albuquerque and Bernalillo County squarely in the path of a worsening overdose crisis. A 19-year DEA agent based in Albuquerque, David Howell, filed a whistleblower complaint in mid-2023 after concluding the tactic was being used too aggressively, and he alleged that more than 300,000 fentanyl pills reached Albuquerque and other communities by September 2024.

The tactic, known inside drug enforcement as letting drugs “walk,” is designed to keep shipments moving long enough to identify larger networks. In this case, the Albuquerque Journal said federal prosecutors and DEA agents did not immediately seize some fentanyl shipments or make arrests even as overdose deaths surged across New Mexico, and court records in Albuquerque show multiple sales happened under surveillance while officials kept the investigations alive. The DEA denied wrongdoing, but the complaint was later deemed unsubstantiated even as the investigation found agents and prosecutors had acted within their discretion under updated 2024 guidance.

For Bernalillo County, the dispute lands in the middle of a public-health emergency that has already reshaped neighborhoods, emergency rooms and street-level policing. New Mexico’s drug overdose death rate has been among the highest in the nation for most of the last two decades, according to the New Mexico Department of Health, which says the state’s death rate has more than tripled since 1990. The department also says deaths involving fentanyl and methamphetamine have increased dramatically. In 2023, New Mexico had the seventh-highest total drug overdose death rate in the nation, including the District of Columbia.

The local stakes are sharpened by the scale of the federal fentanyl campaign. In a 2024 Justice Department speech, Attorney General Merrick Garland said DEA had seized more than 47 million fentanyl pills and more than 6,100 pounds of fentanyl powder so far that year, calling that haul more than 302 million deadly doses. But Associated Press reporting tied the Albuquerque case to a very different picture on the ground, saying current and former DEA agents and government records showed the agency permitted hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to reach New Mexico streets between 2023 and 2025.

That reporting also described monitored deliveries of 150,000 pills, 50,000 pills and a separate 74,000-pill transaction in Albuquerque. The New Mexico Department of Health says its 2024 and 2025 overdose data are still provisional, a reminder that the toll in Bernalillo County is still unfolding even as the argument over who approved these tactics, and who bears the cost, continues to intensify.