内容摘要：The DEA has long refused to discuss the stings, which involve setting up front companies, buying property and making wire transfers on behalf of cartels. But internal records show the number of such money laundering operations ballooned at one point to 53 around the country.

The DEA has long refused to discuss the stings, which involve setting up front companies, buying property and making wire transfers on behalf of cartels. But internal records show the number of such money laundering operations ballooned at one point to 53 around the country.

Forest Service, Pomeroy, Wash. (10,516 square feet)Geological Survey, Potsdam, N.Y. (1,748 square feet)

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Princeton, N.J. (3,780 square feet)Mine Safety Health Administration, Rapid City, S.D. (3,098 square feet)Office of Hearing and Appeals, Rapid City, S.D. (2,252 square feet)

National Indian Gaming Commission, Rapid City, S.D. (1,518 square feet)Natural Resources Conservation Service, Renton, Wash. (1,451 square feet)

Employment Standards Administration, Office of Workers’ Comp Programs, Richland, Wash. (979 square feet)

United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Richmond, Va. (4,380 square feet)Mikayla Brown sits for a photo in the room of her son, Elijah, who died of a fentanyl overdose at 15, in Atascadero, Calif., Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, as two of his skateboards hang on the wall. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Mikayla Brown sits for a photo in the room of her son, Elijah, who died of a fentanyl overdose at 15, in Atascadero, Calif., Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, as two of his skateboards hang on the wall. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)Mikayla Brown lost her son Elijah, who went by Eli, to a suspected fentanyl overdose in 2023, two weeks after his 15th birthday. Eli loved skateboarding, video games and cooking. His favorite was spicy Cajun pasta his mom made and he just started to get into cooking himself.

Eli began experimenting with marijuana in high school and he was going through what seemed like a phase many teenagers go through, his mom said. The family decided he’d go live with his biological father about three hours away in Woodland Hills in Los Angeles, to try to get a handle on what Brown called Eli’s “rebellion era.”Brown said the family “never in a million years” would have thought he was getting into anything more dangerous than that. There was one exception, about a year before he passed away, his mom found him acting funny and he admitted to having taken Xanax, a prescription anti-anxiety drug.