Editor’s note: This is part two of a series on fentanyl and its deadly impact on Butte County. Today: A look at how it gets here, with former E-R editor David Little providing a first-hand look at the many challenges faced on our southern border.
It starts on the border.
On a sunny but brisk October day in 2018, just three weeks before the Camp Fire would drastically change Butte County, Kory Honea was riding shotgun in a gleaming new black pickup in Cochise County, Arizona.
It wasn’t marked as a law enforcement vehicle, but there was little doubt that it was. The large black gun barrel poking up between the two front seats was the most obvious giveaway.
In the little town of Naco, which is split by the border and where Mexican children cross in the morning to attend American schools, a constant parade of white pickups marked “Border Patrol” drove up and down the wall, looking for crossers.
It was mostly for show, it seemed. It was the middle of the day and you could see for miles. Nobody was going to be crossing illegally. You’d think.
But up ahead, two of the Border Patrol trucks were gathered. A man in handcuffs was placed in the back of one of the trucks.
Good news, right? That’s what Border Patrol agents do, capture crossers. But hardened by grim realities and years of experience, they didn’t celebrate the arrest of a solitary man.
“While we’re chasing this guy,” explained a Border Patrol agent, “he might just be creating a diversion so a dozen more can cross three miles away.”
The people who cross aren’t the biggest problem. The product that crosses is.
That same day, Cochise County Jail Commander Kenny Bradshaw shared stories about the cartels using drones to drop packages of heroin on the U.S. side of the border, or people using potato guns to shoot heroin over the wall to cartel employees on the American side, or adults hiring kids to throw softball-size packets of drugs over the wall so it looked like kids playing a cross-border game of catch.
This was what Honea, Butte County’s sheriff, came to see. He went there nearly four years ago because Butte County had (and still has) an opioid problem, one of the worst in the state. But, he noted: “We don’t make heroin in Butte County. It’s coming from somewhere else. All the intelligence we have is that the heroin is coming up from Mexico.”
He wanted to see the other end of the supply-and-demand chain. An unsolicited, unorthodox invitation made that possible.
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It started four months before the trip to the border when a package arrived on Honea’s desk.
It was a book sent by a stranger, who at the time was the sheriff from rural Macon County in Illinois farm country. Macon County has less than half the population of Butte County but they have a similar problem — opioid abuse.
The book, written by a New York Times bestselling author, is called “Our 50-State Border Crisis.” The cover carries the subtitle, “How the Mexican Border Fuels the Drug Epidemic Across America.”
The book tells the story of a cattle rancher and farmer who owns thousands of acres on the border in Arizona. It shares what’s happening right there in Cochise County.
It’s also the story of a philanthropist who gives away tens of millions of dollars a year through his foundation, usually focused on two objectives: ending hunger in Africa and combating suffering in Central America and South America. His largesse gives people hope.
The book was sent to all sheriffs in America and it came with an invitation: Come see for yourself, and the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office will show you around.
The invitation came from Howard Buffett, the son of billionaire Warren Buffett.
What was Howard Buffett’s connection to the Macon County sheriff, the bestselling author, the Cochise County rancher and the philanthropist who tries to help people in Africa and Central America?
All are the same person: Howard Buffett.
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Buffett bought two large ranches on the border in Cochise County to experiment with the science of growing food in arid climates. The longtime farmer, whose family made its fortune in agriculture through their company Berkshire Hathaway, wanted to apply what he would learn in Arizona to his philanthropic work to end hunger in Africa.
He soon discovered that doing any kind of farming or ranching on the border came with a unique set of challenges because of illegal border crossers. He quickly learned about the human trafficking and drug trafficking practiced by Mexican cartels preying on immigrants seeking refuge from the countries Buffett was trying to help, particularly Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
At the same time, Buffett was serving as an appointed sheriff at his other home in Macon County, Illinois, finishing another sheriff’s term. As a sheriff and reservist, Buffett had a front-and-center seat to America’s opioid problem and it affected him deeply.
His book, “Our 50-State Border Crisis,” makes the sobering connection between America’s demand for cheap opioids and the cartels’ eagerness to make money satiating that demand.
He details how gangs would drive Central Americans out of unsafe cities. The immigrants would head north, where coyotes would prey on them. Women were often subjected to human trafficking. Young men and women would be told they could avoid the cartels’ crossing fee by serving as drug mules.
Cartels had an answer for those who refused: They would be killed, and so would their families back home.
Buffett’s book offers recommendations about how to deal with the multi-faceted crisis. Border security in his mind doesn’t mean merely building a better wall. He lays out the complex issue in the book, then in real life donates millions of dollars to improve the lot of Central Americans so they don’t have to flee crime-ridden cities in the first place.
The book, as vivid as it is, doesn’t begin to explain to other sheriffs how bad the problem is on the border. You have to see it, Buffett believes. So he and Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels developed a program called Borders to Backyards, where sheriffs are invited down to see for themselves. Honea was eager to see it, and in October 2018 he paid his way to go.
It was a fascinating trip. And it was just a beginning.
Three weeks after the trip to Arizona, the Camp Fire hit Butte County. Buffett reached out to Honea to check on him. His foundation replaced the BCSO vehicles lost in the fire.
A year later, Buffett came to Butte County. He wanted to see a cartel marijuana grow to broaden his education about the 50-state border crisis.
In December, three years after his first trip to Arizona, Honea was on the border again, this time staying with Buffett at his ranch and spending time with Cochise sheriff’s officials to learn more about the newest twist in the border story.
The biggest concern is no longer heroin. It’s fentanyl.
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The unfortunate truth about the Mexican cartels is that they run a shrewd business. They create a demand by filling it with supply.
America’s fentanyl problem is largely fueled by product created in Mexico, then smuggled across the border using the same routes and tricks used to funnel marijuana and heroin in past cycles.
When marijuana became legal here, the cartels moved their cultivation operations to Washington, Oregon and California, including Butte County. They then used their border transportation conduits to move heroin. When they learned it was much easier and cheaper to create fentanyl, they switched products again.
You don’t need to grow cannabis or poppies to create fentanyl. You don’t need to pay farmers. You just buy chemicals and mix them.
The cartels buy the chemicals from China to make the fentanyl. The chemicals by themselves aren’t outlawed because they have legitimate uses. The fentanyl can then be used to make tablets that look like prescription pain pills. Cheap pain pills.
An Aug. 29 article in the Wall Street Journal detailed how a single person with a barrel and a paddle can create hundreds of thousands of doses in a six-day work week, doing it all by himself.
If one lab gets caught and shut down, there are many others. If a truck with hidden fentanyl gets seized at a border crossing or a backpack with pills containing fentanyl is found on a crosser, it’s just a cost of doing business. There are plenty more trucks, plenty more drug mules.
Federal drug agents and local agencies like the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office make a tremendous number of drug seizures, but they know it’s a game of whack-a-mole.
They keep trying, though, because the human toll is immense.
First, there are Americans dying. Fentanyl resulted in more than 108,000 deaths in the United States last year. Addiction alters lives and cities.
Second, the trafficking has an enormous human element. Buffett’s book details it in heartbreaking fashion. People leaving a violent situation in Central America cannot escape cartels by heading north.
The cartels control the border. Nobody gets across without their permission, and that means paying for help to cross. Dannels said this month that the current going rate averages $7,000 to either assist it or simply allow it. He said they’ve heard of fees as high as $21,000.
If a person can’t afford it, the cartels find ways to work off the debt. The person might be asked to carry a brick of fentanyl – enough to yield tens of thousands of doses – in exchange for a ride to a safe house in Arizona. Or they might be told about a job in the United States that, in reality, is guarding a marijuana garden in Butte County or, for women, sex trafficking.
When the victims of this trafficking are detained by law enforcement on this side of the border, it’s almost impossible to get them to talk. The cartels know where their family members live.
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The 83-mile stretch of border in Cochise County is a beautiful mix of desert and mountains. In flatter areas with towns and roads, there’s a 20-foot steel wall. In more remote parts of the county, the “wall” is just metal posts with a waist-high rail. It’s a barrier to cars but not to people on foot. In steeper areas, there is no fence at all.
A fortified border wall in some places pushes illegal foot crossings into more desolate areas that are more dangerous.
To sneak people across, the cartels use the same high-tech methods as law enforcement, with lookouts, night vision optics and guns.
“In my 38 years here, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly – and this is the ugliest I’ve ever seen it,” said Sheriff Dannels. “This is not a good time on the southwest border. It’s a challenge for all of us.”
Dannels said more than 5 million doses of fentanyl were seized last year on the Arizona border and added, “And that’s just what we know. That’s a nominal number compared to what’s really getting across.”
Then there are the deaths of people trying to cross. The United Nations counted 728 deaths at the border in 2021. This year’s rate is similar. That’s more than twice the average of the previous 20 years.
“This is the largest crime scene in America right now,” said Dannels, “and we’re neglecting it, both from a public safety standpoint and from a humanitarian objective.”
•••
The 1,000-mile distance between Cochise County and Butte County shrinks as Honea learns more about what’s happening here and there.
Earlier this year, Honea was asked by Dannels to serve on the National Sheriffs’ Association Border Security Committee. It has led to valuable connections to fight the “50-state border crisis.” Buffett and his foundation have been a tremendous help.
When Buffett came to Butte County in November 2019 to see a cartel grow, it was eye opening for Buffett. The Sheriff’s Office was investigating a property near Brush Creek. Armed with a search warrant, they found bags of cash and marijuana, two assault rifles, ballistic body armor and more. They detained 15 people, all from Mexico.
Eventually, 12 were arrested. Nobody talked. Honea knew why.
There were two substantial developments because of that day.
First, Buffett’s foundation purchased a new helicopter, valued at $1.5 million, for the Sheriff’s Office because the old one wouldn’t start that day.
Second, the bust was a precursor to the formation of a collaborative effort called Northern California Coalition to Safeguard Communities. Sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices in Butte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity and Lake counties received funding for this effort from the United Way Center to Combat Human Trafficking, which lists the Howard G. Buffett Foundation as a major funder. The goal of the five-county effort is to learn more about human trafficking, environmental damage and illegal water diversions connected to illegal marijuana growing operations in the region.
Is all this making a difference? It’s natural to wonder. Honea’s perspective is framed by nearly 30 years in law enforcement in Butte County. He’s seen the cycles – first methamphetamine, then prescription painkillers, and more recently heroin and fentanyl.
“Heroin and fentanyl have brought death and destruction to the people of Butte County, but they aren’t made here. They are made in Mexico,” Honea said. “When I read ‘Our 50-State Border Crisis,’ I began to realize the complexity of the problem we were facing.
“I went to the Southwest border first in 2018 and again in 2021 to gain a better understanding of how meth, heroin and fentanyl end up on the streets of Butte County. In doing so, I found intersections between the cross-border distribution of drugs, human trafficking and cartel-controlled canibis cultivation in Butte County. My hope is that a better understanding of these intersections, the relationships I have developed and the resources now at our disposal will give us an edge in our ongoing effort to make Butte County safe.”
Honea acknowledges the seeming impossibility of the battle. But it won’t stop him from fighting.
“As sheriff,” he said, “I am always looking for solutions to our most dangerous problems.”