15 tons of meth worth $4B seized in Mexico

Authorities in Mexico say they seized a record 15 tons of methamphetamine valued at $4 billion in one fell swoop. The drug bust Wednesday at a ranch outside Guadalajara was more than twice the amount of methamphetamine Mexican authorities seized all of last year, The New York Times reported Thursday. "The big thing it shows is the sheer capacity that these superlabs have in Mexico," Rusty Payne, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told the Times. "When we see one lab with the capability to produce such a mass tonnage of meth, it begs a question: What else is out there?" Eric Olson, a security expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, acknowledged the amount seized is "huge" and "eye-popping," but won't have much effect on long-term demand for the illicit drug. "If a seizure of this magnitude raises the street price, consumption may go down for a time, but it is only a matter of time until the market adjusts and the supply comes back up," he said.