Inside the fentanyl cartel: Mexico crime lords feeding US addiction

We gain rare access inside the world’s most dangerous crime cartels, making one of the world’s most deadly opioid drugs.

Fentanyl drug use was the biggest cause of death for Americans aged between 18 and 45 – more than gun crime, more than road accidents.

The synthetic opiate killed at least seventy thousand Americans in just one year.

Fentanyl is smuggled across the Mexican border by the Sinaloa drug cartel, and US authorities have charged dozens of its members with trafficking – including the three sons of its leader, El Chapo Guzman, who’s now in a maximum security prison.

To grasp the dimensions of this deadly trade you need to confront the people behind it.

We did just that.