Mexican cartels lure chemistry students to make fentanyl

The cartel recruiter sneaked onto campus disguised as a janitor and then set his sights on his target: a second-year chemistry student.

The recruiter explained that the cartel was looking for staff for a project and that he had heard good things about the young man.

“‘You’re good at what you do,'” the student recalled the recruiter saying. “‘You decide whether you’re interested.'”

In their quest to build fentanyl empires, Mexican criminal groups are drawing on an unusual talent pool: not hitmen or corrupt police officers, but chemistry students studying at Mexican universities.

People who make fentanyl in cartel labs, called chefs, told the New York Times that they needed workers with advanced knowledge of chemistry to make the drug stronger and “get more people hooked,” as one chef put it .

The cartels also have a more ambitious goal: to synthesize the chemical compounds, called precursors, that are essential to making fentanyl, thereby eliminating the need to import these raw materials from China.