U.S. CHARGES 4 CHINESE FIRMS WITH TRAFFICKING FENTANYL MATERIALS

Bags of fentanyl and heroin that were seized by authorities.

Sat 24 June 2023:

Four Chinese firms have been charged with criminal activity by the US justice department for allegedly trafficking raw ingredients used to make the addictive painkiller fentanyl.

The three indictments, which were released on Friday, are the first time that the government has vowed to pursue criminal charges against companies and individuals based in China for smuggling fentanyl’s ingredients into the US and Mexico.

“I promised that the justice department would never forget the victims of the fentanyl epidemic,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement on Friday. “I also promised that we would never stop working to hold accountable those who bear responsibility for it.”

He explained that his department’s strategy went beyond targeting the leaders of Mexican drug cartels by also pursuing their suppliers. Chinese chemical companies, he said, “are supplying the cartels with the building blocks they need to manufacture deadly fentanyl”.

In addition to the four Chinese corporations, eight employees and executives were named in the documents on Friday.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy condemned Friday’s charges, stating that the US was looking to scapegoat China for its domestic drug crisis. It also accused the justice department of “long-arm jurisdiction”.

“The incident was a well-planned entrapment operation by the US side, which seriously infringed upon the legitimate rights of relevant enterprises and individuals,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said. “China strongly condemns it.”

The United States is in the grip of a continuous opioid crisis, with over 564,000 individuals dead as a result of overdoses between 1999 and 2020. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, has worsened the situation in recent years.

Federal prosecutors claimed in Friday’s indictment that Chinese companies advertised fentanyl precursor chemicals on their websites and social media profiles. They subsequently sold the ingredients to the Sinaloa drug cartel and other Mexican criminal gangs, which have been smuggling fentanyl into the United States for years.

The causes of overdose crises are complicated, and some have accused the US government of seeking quick victories by focusing on enforcement operations against criminal organizations in countries such as Mexico.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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