The organization likely transferred their production to India due to difficulties obtaining precursor chemicals in China and the increasing pressure from Chinese authorities on fentanyl manufacturing operations” (2, 4). In a US indictment from January 2025, two chemical companies in India were charged with supplying the chemicals used to make fentanyl to the US and Mexico. According to the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Mexican criminal organisations – including the Sinaloa Cartel – play a key role in producing and delivering fentanyl, external, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs into the US.
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Neither Canada nor China has signaled major changes to tackle the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., and each has said it would retaliate for any U.S. tariffs. Attorney General William Barr, Ray Donovan, a former Drug Enforcement Administration Official, and David Luckey, a drug policy expert with the RAND Corporation. According to the House report released Tuesday, Chinese officials appear to have taken steps to conceal financial incentives linked to fentanyl, but failed to end them. And they stated in that blog that it's tied to overdoses. They wrote a blog and posted it on a website about how they create a certain type of synthetic narcotic.
As of the end of 2022, the number of API manufacturers in China reached 1,606, whereas the number of precursors-producing chemical companies was at least 160,000 (or nearly 100 times more). Furthermore, none of these five companies has obtained FDA approval through an Abbreviated New Drug Application (known as ANDA approval) for their clinical-use fentanyl products. While Yichang Humanwell’s fentanyl-related products are exported, they are not sent to the United States, according to the company. Hospitals are required to recycle used fentanyl transdermal patches, which still contain 3.71 percent to 75.15 percent drug residue after three days of use, due to concerns that if discarded randomly, they are likely to pollute the environment or be used by criminals to produce illicit fentanyl.
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The Treasury Department has also used bank data to identify fentanyl vendors. WeChat's parent company, Tencent, did not respond to NPR's request for comment. "Sellers and buyers know the obscure acronyms, code names, chemical registration numbers and the like, and are able to change on a dime when one trusted member of a group is raided or arrested," said Logan Pauley, a former C4ADS analyst who worked on the report. Access to the Internet gives even small-time sellers in China transnational reach to market and ship their potent products. "I have never done anything illegal, and my work is all within legal bounds," Chen said. In September 2019, NPR managed to meet Chen at the industrial materials company where he works.
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Once the novelty of the idea had settled, Williams sent Tamman to the lawyers. In between, the side effects of seemingly innocuous U.S. trade policy and the history of China’s opium wars expertly explain a complex system with devastating effects. In “Fentanyl Express,” a team of Reuters journalists spread across Mexico, the U.S. and China detailed the entire supply chain of fentanyl, by becoming buyers within it. In November, the US Drug Enforcement Administration said it was finding lethal doses of fentanyl in fewer pills than it did a year earlier. Experts say that it’s difficult to attribute the rapid decrease in overdose deaths to one factor. But overdose deaths started a rapid decline at the start of last year.
- "So you have these massive loopholes where criminals engage in selling legal products, but they knowingly sell them to criminal entities," says Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institute.
- Justice Department or sanctioned by the Treasury Department show that nearly all these charged and sanctioned entities are producers of chemical intermediaries and APIs.
- After you’ve taken an opioid like fentanyl for a long time, your brain gets used to the drug.
- This more recent version of fentanyl comes in bright colors.
- More than 100,000 deaths were linked to drug overdoses in 2022, according to the U.S. “We are shipping to the U.S. and have success with deliveries to your country and others,” the salesperson said.
- Cronin's investigators went online and discovered overseas labs offering most any illegal drug.
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However, despite U.S. diplomatic efforts to stem the production of precursors, China has done very little to enforce international and domestic laws banning fentanyl production. An NPR investigation in 2020 found a web of Chinese companies whose employees were openly marketing fentanyl precursors and selling them to clients in Mexico and the United States. "We're taking action to significantly reduce the flow of precursor chemicals and pill presses from China to the Western hemisphere," President Joe Biden said, following a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California. Street fentanyl has driven a devastating surge in fatal overdoses, killing tens of thousands of people in the U.S every year. Specifically, researchers found companies making fentanyl precursors and analogues could apply for state tax rebates and other financial benefits after exporting the product.
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With more than 110,000 drug overdose deaths every year in the U.S., fentanyl has become a major flashpoint in the 2024 presidential campaign. "Rather than investigating drug traffickers, Chinese security services have not cooperated with U.S. law enforcement, and have even notified targets of U.S. investigations when they received requests for assistance," said the report. Investigators say they found evidence that many of the subsidized companies are marketing their products directly to illicit buyers in Mexico, using crypto-currencies to help conceal transactions.
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Using payment and shipment information that the sellers themselves provided, the Senate investigators identified 500 transactions in 43 states adding up to $766 million worth of fentanyl, going by its street value, just from these six sellers. The investigators didn’t actually execute a purchase, because even a small amount of fentanyl can be lethal. These sounded like sophisticated operations, offering discounts on bulk purchases and even trying to upsell the investigators to carfentanil, an even more powerful opioid. The staff started, quite literally, by Googling “fentanyl for sale,” they said. There isn’t any silver bullet to the drug crisis. “We must keep this poison off our streets and out of our communities,” Portman said in a statement accompanying the staff’s report.
When using fentanyl, it is important to start with a low dose and go slowly. You can buy fentanyl test strips online or at a local harm reduction organization. It is also a good idea to test the fentanyl before using it to ensure that it is pure and free from contaminants. If you do decide to buy fentanyl from China, it is important to take certain safety precautions. The objective of this study is to inspire global fentanyl regulation through empirically examining the regulatory frameworks of two of the world’s largest fentanyl manufacturers, China and India. Chinese suppliers responded by marketing the unregulated raw materials for precursors.
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Drug overdose is a leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. And so far, the Trump administration’s response to the opioid crisis — a regular talking point for the president on the campaign trail — has been severely lacking in those other, arguably more pressing areas. It is relatively easy to produce and is much more potent than heroin. Even through the narrow lens of cutting the drug supply, the sellers have already proven adept at adapting to new circumstances.
- It's one of the most common drugs involved in overdose deaths.
- Fentanyl is a strong synthetic opioid that has been used in clinical settings since 1968.
- If you are caught buying fentanyl from China, you could face serious legal consequences, including fines and imprisonment.
- Fentanyl test strips can identify the presence of fentanyl in unregulated drugs.
- Sometimes operating under the pseudonym "King Sun" or "Sun King," he also advertised his chemical wares openly on LinkedIn, Twitter and Vimeo before and after the class ban last year.
- The drug vendors NPR visited worked out of offices tucked away in shopping malls, residential towers and industrial complexes.
The Trump administration has accused the Mexican government of colluding with the drug cartels. Since last October, 9,200 lb (4,182kg) of fentanyl have been seized in the US, according to figures published by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), external. And in February, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the appointment Kevin Brosseau, as Canada's fentanyl czar. In December, the country pledged C$1.3bn ($900m; £700m) for combating fentanyl and enhancing border security. In the first 10 months of 2024, the Canadian border service reported seizing 10.8lb (4.9kg) of fentanyl entering from the US, while US Border Patrol intercepted 32.1lb (14.6kg) of fentanyl coming from Canada. According to data from the US Customs and Border Patrol, external, only about 0.8% of all seizures of fentanyl entering the US so far this year were made at the Canadian border.
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Although fentanyl patches are a legal form of the drug doctors sometimes prescribe for pain, they are easily abused. The drug can be manufactured illegally. Drug enforcers theorize that dyes may help drug traffickers avoid detection with the drugs. When it’s in powdered form, it looks a lot like other powdered drugs such as cocaine.
