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Current and former DEA agents, including whistleblower David Howell, told AP the strategy amounted to a gamble with public safety and may have violated U.S. Justice Department rules intended to safeguard the public.

The fentanyl went unseized amid the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history and as the DEA led a public awareness campaign — “One Pill Can Kill" — emphasizing that even a few milligrams of the substance can be lethal.

The criminal investigation turns a debate over enforcement tactics into a question of whether federal agents crossed legal lines while pursuing larger trafficking organizations.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, said federal agents “are not above the law,” but they enjoy substantial legal protections when carrying out official duties.

Still, Torrez said he would start “demanding documents and information about the DEA's conduct, in New Mexico and nationally, to determine whether what occurred here reflects a broader pattern of reckless or unlawful behavior.”

“If those allegations are accurate, the consequences for New Mexicans were not abstract. They were fatal,” Torrez wrote in a letter to Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who earlier this week

“New Mexico already ranks among the states hardest hit by fentanyl overdose deaths," he added, "and the families who have lost children, siblings and parents to this crisis deserve a full accounting of what the federal government knew, what it did and what it failed to do."

The DEA initially denied Howell's allegations in a statement to AP. But the agency later called upon the Justice Department's independent watchdog .

“Should that review identify areas of improvement, the DEA will of course implement changes to better their practices,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “We welcome a partnership with Governor Lujan Grisham, as well as New Mexico state and local leaders, to fight the scourge of fentanyl and keep her constituents safe.”

A growing number of local and state leaders in New Mexico have expressed outrage in the wake of Howell's allegations. But those sentiments are not widely held by family members of overdose victims, said Paul E. Martin, founder of United Against Fentanyl, a nonprofit organization fighting the epidemic that represents 5,000 family members of victims.

“Law enforcement makes mistakes," Martin said. “But the DEA are the men and women putting their lives on the line. Their entire business is the removal of illegal and toxic drugs from our streets.”