Strategic Drug Threat Developments

• Some Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are extending transportation and distribution operations to the North Texas HIDTA region to avoid heightened scrutiny along the Southwest Border. They can conceal their operations more efficiently among the growing Hispanic population of this area than in sparsely populated areas along the U.S.-Mexico border.
• The distribution and abuse of ice methamphetamine are expanding throughout the North Texas HIDTA region, despite steady declines in local powder methamphetamine production. Mexican DTOs are supplanting decreased local production by supplying large amounts of ice methamphetamine to the area.
• African American, Asian, and Mexican DTOs operating in the North Texas HIDTA region are increasingly conducting drug transactions with one another, an action that facilitates the expansion of drug distribution networks.
• Local traffickers have increased their access to multiple drug sources and drug types through interaction with Mexican DTOs. As a result, local traffickers are introducing different drug types to their customers.
• Asian DTOs from the Pacific Northwest and Canada reportedly trade MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy) to Mexican DTOs for cocaine in the North Texas HIDTA region, but the extent of this practice is currently unknown.
• The abuse of Mexican black tar heroin resurfaced during the past year in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area, particularly in Collin County, where abuse of the drug was responsible for several drug overdose deaths.
• The abuse of "cheese" heroin is increasing in the Dallas area and contributed to the deaths of at least 17 local adolescents during the past 2 years.

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HIDTA Area Overview

The North Texas HIDTA region encompasses 15 counties in North Texas, clustered primarily around the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area, and 6 counties in Oklahoma, which include the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Most of the region's population is located in Dallas. The Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area has a population of approximately 5.8 million people; the Oklahoma City metropolitan area has approximately 1.2 million.

The North Texas HIDTA region is supported by an extensive transportation system that provides national and international commercial connections through numerous interstate highways, U.S. highways, railways, bus lines, and airlines. Drug traffickers exploit the region's infrastructure to transport and distribute illicit drugs to and from the area and to transport illicit proceeds generated by the sales of illicit drugs to Mexico. The North Texas HIDTA region is often a destination for illicit drug shipments from Mexico and states along the U.S.-Mexico border; it is also a transshipment zone for drug shipments en route to midwestern, southeastern, eastern, and other southwestern drug markets.

Figure 2. North Texas HIDTA transportation infrastructure.

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Several primary drug transportation routes in the United States traverse the North Texas HIDTA region. Dallas, Forth Worth, and Oklahoma City are located at the intersections of major north-south and east-west transportation routes that lead from the Southwest Border area to interior drug markets. Interstate 35 is the primary north-south route that affects drug transportation into the HIDTA region. Interstate 35 begins in Laredo, the busiest inland port of entry (POE) in the United States, and passes through Dallas/Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, continuing to drug markets in the West Central and Great Lakes Regions. Interstates 20 and 40 provide access to the North Texas HIDTA region from smuggling hubs in western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Although I-10 does not traverse North Texas HIDTA counties, traffickers use this route to access I-20, which passes through Dallas/Fort Worth and extends to South Carolina.

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