The Biden administration on Tuesday focused on the threat of the fentanyl trade, announcing a series of charges and sanctions against Chinese companies and executives accused of importing the chemicals used to make the deadly drug.
Officials described the actions, which include charges against eight Chinese companies accused of advertising, manufacturing and distributing precursor chemicals for synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, as the latest effort in their fight against the deadliest overdose crisis in United States history. The measures come one day before senior government officials are due to visit Mexico, where the cartels are part of the global smuggling network, for meetings expected to include a discussion on the drug threat.
“We know that this network includes the leaders of the cartels, their drug traffickers, their money launderers, their clandestine laboratory personnel, their security forces, their weapons suppliers and their chemical suppliers,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference. “And we know that this global fentanyl supply chain that ends in the deaths of Americans often starts with chemical companies in China.”
In addition to indicting eight companies, the Justice Department has also indicted 12 executives for their alleged role in the drug trade. In a coordinated move, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against 28 people and companies – mainly in China but also in Canada – that will cut them off from the US financial system and ban anyone in the US from doing business with them. None of the defendants have been arrested, but Mr. Garland said prosecutors planned to “bring all of these defendants to justice.”
“It is the latest step in the rapid scale-up of our work targeting the financial flows that drive the global illicit drug trade,” said Deputy Finance Minister Wally Adeyemo. He said the Treasury Department is also looking for the friends, relatives and associates of the people who benefit from drug sales.
“If you benefit from the proceeds of this illegal activity, we will go after your assets,” he said.
Mexico and China are the top sources for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances smuggled directly into the US, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is charged with combating the illegal drug trade. Nearly all the precursor chemicals needed to make fentanyl come from China. And the companies that make the precursors routinely use false return addresses and mislabel the products to avoid being caught by police.
One of the examples cited by the Justice Department involves a Chinese pharmaceutical technology company that promoted xylazine, a horse tranquilizer often mixed with fentanyl to ensure a more powerful high, and shipped the chemicals to the US and Mexico. One of the buyers in Mexico was a drug trafficker with ties to the Sinaloa cartel, according to officials.
This latest action follows a series of measures taken this year against members of the Sinaloa Cartel, cash couriers and cartel fraud schemes.
Republicans, however, have complained that the government is not doing enough to stop fentanyl and that the issue is likely to feature prominently in next year’s presidential campaign.
In February, 21 Republican attorneys general wrote a letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, calling on them to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Last year, a group of Republican attorneys general asked the president to declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. No such actions were taken.
Fentanyl, a powerful opioid, is currently the deadliest drug in the US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdose deaths increased more than sevenfold from 2015 to 2021.
As of 2020, more than 100,000 deaths per year have been linked to drug overdoses, and about two-thirds of those are linked to fentanyl. The death toll is more than ten times higher than in 1988, at the height of the crack epidemic.
The US has taken a slew of measures to stem the flow of fentanyl entering the country. In total, the Biden administration has imposed more than 200 sanctions related to the illegal drug trade.
State lawmakers across the country are responding to the deadliest overdose crisis in U.S. history by imposing stricter penalties for fentanyl possession.
Speaking at the Family Summit on Fentanyl last week, Mr. Garland said the Justice Department will send out about $345 million in federal funding over the next year, including money to support mentoring for at-risk youth and to expand access to the overdose prevention service. . – Reversal drug naloxone.
On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the Senate Banking and Armed Services committees have introduced legislation that would declare fentanyl trafficking a national emergency and urge the Treasury Department to use its sanctions power to curb the drug’s proliferation suppress in the US.
It would also impose reporting requirements and allow the president to seize sanctioned property from fentanyl traffickers so it can be used for law enforcement efforts.
This story was reported by the Associated Press. Lindsay Whitehurst of Wilmington, Delaware contributed to this report.