SAN DIEGO - Caribbean cit­i­zens are be­ing warned about the grow­ing threat posed by fen­tanyl, as Unit­ed States au­thor­i­ties in­crease ef­forts to dis­man­tle hu­man smug­gling and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works op­er­at­ing along the south­ern bor­der.

Speak­ing dur­ing a brief­ing with 13 in­ter­na­tion­al jour­nal­ists in San Diego on Thurs­day, Adam Gor­don said fen­tanyl re­mains one of the most dan­ger­ous drugs con­fronting com­mu­ni­ties be­cause many peo­ple con­sume it un­know­ing­ly through coun­ter­feit pills or con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed drugs.

He said recre­ation­al drug users and young peo­ple are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble be­cause they of­ten have no tol­er­ance to the pow­er­ful syn­thet­ic opi­oid.