DEA’s fentanyl “walk” approach faced whistleblower scrutiny

DEA allowed – A New Mexico whistleblower says the DEA let hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills be distributed as agents sought larger targets—an approach the agency and federal prosecutors defended as lawful, while internal reviews found no specific public-health danger.

In Albuquerque, a government complaint about fentanyl getting out—unchecked—sat for months in the shadows. It was sent to the White House in September, then faded from view.

When AP reporters Jim Mustian and Joshua Goodman later reviewed internal DEA records and interviewed current and former agents, the question they kept returning to was stark: why did investigators monitor dangerous shipments and not seize them, even as overdose deaths hit a peak around the country?

The work that followed became a rare inside look at how the Drug Enforcement Administration uses discretion in the drug war. It focused on an effort to allow controlled drugs to “walk” so agents can build bigger federal cases—while critics say the tactic is especially risky with fentanyl.

Mustian and Goodman traced the complaint to a whistleblower whose identity had been partly protected through redactions in documents. The paper trail was heavily blacked out to shield not only the whistleblower’s identity but the amount of fentanyl that was not seized. Then Mustian noticed a mistake: the whistleblower’s name ended in an “l. ” and a single letter had been missed by the redaction.

He reached out to DEA agents whose names ended in “l” and who had worked in Albuquerque. In March, after weeks of messages on LinkedIn, he got a response from an agent who connected him to the whistleblower, David Howell. A couple of weeks later, Mustian flew to New Mexico to meet with Howell.

The DEA’s stated rationale for “walking” drugs—allowing drugs to move rather than seizing them immediately—is to catch higher-level traffickers. But Howell and other critics say fentanyl is different. The simple difference, they argue, is lethality.

The DEA warns in its “One Pill Can Kill” campaign that just a couple of grams—an amount that would fit on the tip of a pencil—can be enough to kill the average adult. In practice, critics point to counterfeit pills meant to mimic name-brand painkillers. Those pills, they say, are typically manufactured in Mexican labs by cartels and contain an unknown amount of fentanyl.

Mustian’s reporting highlighted one monitored shipment in 2023: DEA agents observed fentanyl being delivered at an Albuquerque mobile home park but did not seize it. According to the investigative account, the agents gathered enough intelligence that their report described 74,000 pills as having been delivered.

Howell described the decision as catastrophic in scale, telling Mustian it was akin to “providing one fentanyl pill to each person at a football stadium.”

Federal officials defended the choice not to seize the drugs. Alex Uballez, the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque at the time, acknowledged that authorities sometimes “walk” drugs to target a larger “bigger fish,” saying the approach saves more lives than attempting to interdict every shipment.

The DEA pushed back against the framing that it knowingly allowed fentanyl to reach communities. In a statement. the agency said “public descriptions suggesting that DEA knowingly permitted fentanyl to reach communities are false and fundamentally mischaracterize the facts.” DEA spokesperson Amanda Wozniak added that the investigative decisions at issue were “lawful. reasonable under the circumstances and consistent with Department guidance.”.

For Mustian. the most unsettling takeaway wasn’t only the specifics of one case—it was how wide the gap can be between what law enforcement does with taxpayer resources and what the public is told. He described the way discretion operates in a drug war that affects families and neighborhoods in real time. while records obtained through investigation can remain out of reach.

He said the records his team uncovered would not have been released under the Freedom of Information Act. He also said Howell’s complaint. raising serious concerns about allowing fentanyl to reach drug users. coincided with changes inside the government: the DOJ rewrote its non-public rules to afford law enforcement more discretion in deciding whether to seize the deadly painkiller.

Howell’s complaint went beyond what he says was happening on the ground. He filed a formal whistleblower complaint in late 2023 with the Office of Special Counsel, an agency that protects whistleblowers. He submitted DEA reports. emails. and text messages. including one where colleagues discussed a 100. 000-pill transaction they witnessed but chose not to stop.

The Office of Special Counsel reacted strongly at first. It found a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” and took an unusual step: it asked the Justice Department to investigate.

That investigation reached its own conclusion. In 2024. the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility—described as an internal affairs office—found that the DEA and U.S. attorney’s office made reasonable decisions in deciding to allow drugs to go unseized. and that their inaction posed no “specific danger to public health.”.

Still, Howell and other critics argued that internal investigators missed a central question: whether the DEA permitted massive amounts of fentanyl to hit the streets.

Even as the government defended its choices as lawful and reasonable. the reporting exposed a hard reality for people living with fentanyl’s consequences. A tactic built around prosecuting bigger cases can mean smaller cases—unknown quantities in unknown hands—before a warrant ever comes. And for Howell, the danger was not theoretical. It was measured in pills. monitored in real locations. and released into the world while federal discretion decided how far the trail should be allowed to run.

DEA fentanyl whistleblower David Howell Office of Special Counsel Office of Professional Responsibility Albuquerque drug war “One Pill Can Kill” walking drugs