DEA says NH arrests are part of drug cartel. Many are actually low

The U.S Drug Enforcement Administration claimed it arrested 171 high-level members of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel in New England this August. In the small New Hampshire city of Franklin alone, there were 27 arrests .

But an investigation from the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team found many of those arrested were instead low-level offenders, with little to no link to the Sinaloa drug cartel. The Boston Globe’s Steven Porter joined NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley to talk about what they found.

Transcript

There were 33 arrests in total here in New Hampshire, the majority of them in the city of Franklin. If these arrestees aren't — as they were claimed to be — high level cartel members, then who are they?

My colleagues on the Spotlight investigative team and I looked into this