DEA Agent Says Agency Let Millions of Fentanyl Pills Reach Streets

A veteran Drug Enforcement Administration agent says the agency has let millions of fentanyl pills reach the streets by using an investigative tactic that lets traffickers move product so agents can follow it to bigger cases. Special Agent David Howell, who remains an active agent, said managers ignored his objections for three years.

"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," Howell said in an interview with CBS News.

Howell said the practice, which investigators call letting drugs walk, has caused harm because of fentanyl's lethality. "We at the DEA have let drugs hit the street, yes. The difference was we were told not to with fentanyl," he said.

In 2023, Howell worked on a team tracking a suspect from the air in Albuquerque. Images obtained by CBS News from House Oversight Committee investigators showed a person driving a white SUV who picked up a child. Agents in a black truck stopped the SUV, took the child from the vehicle and detained the suspect. Howell said agents found between 6,000 and 7,000 fentanyl pills in the vehicle, along with a gun stashed in a compartment under the seat where the child had been sitting.

Howell said the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico criticized the team afterward for taking the pills. "We thought the U.S. Attorney's Office would be pleased," Howell said. "Instead, they brought us into their office and chastised us." His whistleblower complaint was first reported last June by the Associated Press and Albuquerque Journal.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has sued the federal government over the practice. "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. Officials in the wider Albuquerque area have declared a state of emergency over rising fentanyl overdose calls.

The DEA and the DOJ declined requests for interviews. The DOJ said DEA Administrator Cole asked the DOJ inspector general for an independent investigation when the whistleblower came forward and that the inquiry remains open. Howell said he came forward because of the toll on his city: "Our city is being destroyed by this drug."