Meth seizures in the Big Apple have reached a record high this year as experts say Mexican cartels taking advantage of strapped security at the US border are flooding the market with the dangerous drug.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York Division had already confiscated a record 876 kilograms (1,931 pounds) this fiscal year before two suspected smugglers were busted last week in Gotham with $1.2 million of the drug.

“New York is seeing the sharpest rise in methamphetamine seizures ever recorded,” Frank A. Tarentino III, special agent in charge of the DEA NY Division, said in a statement to The Post.

“This city is the final destination for illicit drugs like these. Drug traffickers are constantly finding new and innovative ways to get their poison into the hands of New Yorkers.”

Meth seizures by New York drug agents this year have already eclipsed the previous record hauls for fiscal years, including 680 kilograms in 2017 and 755 kilograms in 2020, according to DEA figures provided to The Post.

Drug runners have set their sights on the Big Apple because of its massive population and a higher cost of living that has users ready to pay more for the drug, said cartel expert Roberto Almonte, a former marshal and deputy chief of the El Paso Police Department.

“Mexican cartels, that’s what they live for, that’s what they die for,” Almonte said. “And beyond that, there’s a demand.”

Methamphetamine has often been viewed as more of a problem in the Midwest and other parts of the country, with other drugs like cocaine preferred in New York, law enforcement insiders said. But with cartels making purer meth at lower prices — and often dangerously lacing meth with fentanyl — it is growing at a staggering clip, they added.

Domestic restrictions on the availability of ephedrine have made the prospect of manufacturing meth domestically tougher, and the cartels have pounced on the opening.

“Even the biker gangs don’t make the meth anymore — they get it from the cartels,” Almonte said.

The cartels are also capitalizing on a migrant crisis at the US border with Mexico that has agents stretched thin, Almonte said.

US Customs and Border Protection has reported seizing 133,000 pounds of methamphetamine this year through June — well more than any drug other than Khat, according to CBP figures.

Last year, border agents seized 192,000 pounds of methamphetamine, an amount that was only surpassed by marijuana and Khat seizures, the data show.

Almonte said more resources are needed as border agents are taxed by the ongoing migrant crisis, which has seen a record 207,416 encounters along the border with Mexico in the 2022 fiscal year, according to figures released Friday by the Biden administration.

The flow of migrants has increased since President Biden took office in January 2021, after he pledged to reverse several controversial border policies of former President Donald Trump.

Biden attempted to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which pushed asylum seekers back across the border as they await the resolution of their cases. The administration also tried to end Title 42, which gave authority to expel people who immigrated to the US illegally as a COVID-19 emergency measure.

Meth’s explosion in the New York area has seen overdoses from the drug on the rise.

The New York state Department of Health reported in January that methamphetamine-related deaths increased from 0.3 per 100,000 residents in 2016 to 1.7 per 100,000 in 2020. There were 184 overdose deaths from meth in 2020, but most involved the drug mixed with fentanyl, according to the data.

The National Institutes of Health reported the number of methamphetamine deaths tripled from 2015 to 2019 in people ages 18 to 64. The number of people who reported using meth increased by 43% over the same period, the NIH stated.