A Globe Spotlight Team investigation found that many of the DEA’s targets in New England were precisely the people Forget said they were not: addicts, low-level dealers, shoplifters, and people living at a homeless encampment. Reporters contacted more than 75 state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies; sifted through more than 1,650 pages of court records; filed more than four dozen public-records requests; knocked on dozens of doors; and conducted scores of interviews.

The evidence made clear that the government misrepresented the stature of its targets in New England at a time when the Trump administration was seeking to justify deadly strikes on alleged cartel boats in the Caribbean Sea.

“I can guarantee that he’s not part of the Sinaloa Cartel,” Scott Alati said of his son, Tyler, who was charged in state court in Franklin with a felony-level drug sale and immediately released without having to post bail. “He isn’t a high-ranking member of anything. He’s high-ranking dumb.” Advertisement

Most of the arrestees the Spotlight Team identified are casualties of the fentanyl crisis, not kingpins making a living off it. They included a man accused of shoplifting chocolate Swiss rolls and Jolly Ranchers from a Hannaford supermarket and a woman who allegedly crashed a car into a column at a local bank and left the scene.

Some of the 171 arrestees had significant quantities of drugs, but neither court documents nor agency spokespersons provided evidence that they were high-ranking members of the notorious syndicate. Many suspects’ only link to Sinaloa was that they were consumers of drugs the cartel may have helped bring into the country.

DEA officials last week said they were unable to comment on the Spotlight findings because of the government shutdown.

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