Biden administration indicts Chinese chemical manufacturing companies and employees for fentanyl trafficking

With the announcement of multiple indictments against China-based companies and Chinese employees this week, the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched a new efforts in an ongoing fight against fentanyl production and trafficking.

“The international dimension to the deadly scourge of fentanyl requires the all-of-government response that we are delivering today,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said. “Through the dedication and investigative abilities of Agents and Officers from HSI, CBP, and our federal partners, we are bringing accountability to ruthless organizations and individuals resident in the People’s Republic of China and to the cartel members that seek to profit from the death and destruction that fentanyl causes.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), along with other federal partners, worked together on the cases, with an eye to disrupting the fentanyl precursor chemical supply chain.

These led to three of eight indictments announced by the Department of Justice this week over allegations of fentanyl trafficking, precursor chemical importation, making and using counterfeit postage, and money laundering offenses. The accusations stemmed from infiltrations by HSI agents of Chinese chemical companies selling precursor chemicals and Schedule 1 narcotics on the internet to clients in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia.

Examinations of Postal Service records, monitoring of Chinese-based telephone numbers and use of advanced targeting data followed, leading to interdiction of more than half a ton of precursor chemicals at warehouses in California and Texas before they could be transported to drug manufacturers and the discovery of Bitcoin wallets allegedly used for illicit purchases. In all, the DOJ alleged this to have kept almost 2,000 pounds of fentanyl off the streets.

According to the DOJ, as little as two milligrams of fentanyl could kill an adult.

“We know that the global fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China,” Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The United States government is focused on breaking apart every link in that chain, getting fentanyl out of our communities, and bringing those who put it there to justice.”

Between February 2022 and January 2023, fentanyl was the leading cause of death for Americans between ages 18 and 49. To date, the primary distributors of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues in North America are alleged to be the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, both from Mexico. However, they receive precursors from China to synthesize into fentanyl at scale.

“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our nation has ever faced,” Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Anne Milgram said. “These eight cases are the result of DEA’s efforts to attack the fentanyl supply chain where it starts — in China. Chinese chemical companies are fueling the fentanyl crisis in the United States by sending fentanyl precursors, fentanyl analogues, xylazine, and nitazenes into our country and into Mexico. These chemicals are used to make fentanyl and make it especially deadly. DEA will not stop until we defeat this threat.”