The number of illegal drug production facilities discovered by Mexican police has seen a major jump since 2007, according to figures recently released by Defense Ministry.
As El Universal reports, in that year authorities reportedly dismantled 23 such labs, while in 2009 they managed to bust 198, which amounts to seven-fold rise in two years. While clandestine drug lab seizures have fallen off slightly since then — to 151 last year and 109 so far this year — these numbers are still much higher than in the past.
Sara Monica Medina, director of the federal Forensics Services (Servicios Periciales), told the Mexican paper that her office has seen a huge uptick in the number of drug laboratories they are sent to inspect. “Whereas we used to get three or four labs every year, now we have 10 or 15 per month nationwide,” said Medina.
According to data provided by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office, the states where the most drug laboratories have been discovered since June 2010 are Michoacan (245), Jalisco (89), Sinaloa (77), Baja California (51), Sonora (36), Guanajuato (13) and Colima (12). Not surprisingly, many of these states are known as major producers of methamphetamine, or “cristal,” a synthetic drug produced by reactions between chemicals.
Some 80 percent of the U.S.’s meth supply is estimated to come from Mexico, as InSight Crime has noted.