DOJ indicts Chinese nationals and companies as it cracks down on fentanyl supply chain
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, center, announces the arrest of Chinese chemical company employees as part of an investigation into the fentanyl precursor supply chain during a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Credit: Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla
A dozen Chinese nationals and companies were indicted Friday, charged with manufacturing and supplying the chemical ingredients needed to make fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid which has claimed the lives of hundreds of Long Islanders every year.
This prosecution is among the first ever in the United States to charge chemical manufacturing companies in China with supplying the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, federal prosecutors said.
"The charges brought today exemplify our offices' battle against fentanyl, which is inflicting untold tragedy in New York City, Long Island and across the nation," said Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York at a news conference Friday in Washington, D.C. "We will not rest until this crisis is brought to an end."
The indictment charges eight Chinese nationals — two of whom have been taken into custody — and four companies with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, the opioid responsible for most of fatal overdose deaths on Long Island last year.
Several of those same defendants were also charged with illegally concealing their activities, including through customs fraud, and introducing misbranded drugs into the U.S. marketplace.
The defendants, prosecutors said, supplied the chemicals used to make fentanyl to the United States and to Mexican drug cartels, knowing they would be used to make the deadly opioid, even advertising their products on social media and guaranteeing “100% stealth shipping.”
To prevent detection, officials said, the companies falsified customs forms, mislabeled packages as dog food and cosmetics and added “masking” molecules to the fentanyl, slightly altering the chemical signature to evade testing protocols. The masking molecules were then removed — with instructions from the companies — bringing the fentanyl back to its original form, records show.
“Just one of these China-based chemical companies shipped more than 20 kilograms of fentanyl-related precursor chemicals to the U.S. for the purpose of making 50 kilograms of fentanyl, a quantity that could contain enough deadly doses of fentanyl to kill 25 million Americans,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, announcing the results of the year-long investigation.
During the past eight months, Garland said, the defendants shipped more than 200 kilograms of the precursor chemicals that were intercepted by undercover Drug Enforcement Agency agents.
More than 300 people died of fatal drug overdoses in Nassau last year along with 412 reported last year in Suffolk, officials said last week. While exact numbers were not available, the overwhelming majority of those deaths, officials said, were linked to fentanyl.
Thousands of Long Island residents have died of fatal overdoses since the opioid crisis began in the late 1990s, and drug deaths hit a record 109,689 nationwide last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May.
“Fentanyl is the greatest threat to Americans today,” said DEA administrator Anne Milgram. “It is developing families across our country and killing Americans from all walks of life. And it is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.”
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
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