Dozens of indictments reviewed by BBC Verify detail instances where Chinese manufacturers have provided instructions on how to make fentanyl from products they sell, through encrypted platforms and cryptocurrency payments. President Trump has accused Canada – alongside Mexico – of allowing "vast numbers of people to come in and fentanyl to come in" to the US. The US has long accused Chinese corporations of knowingly supplying the chemical components to gangs who trade in them. More than 48,000 Americans died in 2024 after taking drug mixtures containing fentanyl, according to the US Centres for Disease Control (DCD), external.
Mexico announced in December the seizure of more than a ton of fentanyl pills in what it described as the largest bust of synthetic opioids in the country’s history. President Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China is partly aimed at combating the illicit flow of fentanyl into the U.S., where the opioid is blamed for some 70,000 overdose deaths annually. It is a fact that these synthetic opioids are responsible for the overwhelming increase in overdose deaths in the United States. The risk of overdose, people in his camp argue, is high because drugs are a poorly regulated product sold by unscrupulous middlemen.
The salesperson said the company also sold a banned fentanyl precursor, at $1,100 a kilogram. In 2019, the department sanctioned three Chinese nationals accused of trafficking the synthetic opioids. U.S. law enforcement acknowledged struggling to curb this online fentanyl marketplace, in part because many of the transactions are encrypted. The social media company MeWe said that "any group, page, or member reported on MeWe that is found to be selling any sort of illegal drug is swiftly removed by MeWe's Trust and Safety Team and may be reported to the authorities." Twitter said it does not allow its platform to be used to facilitate illegal transactions and that its advertisement policy prohibits the promotion of drugs and paraphernalia. When confronted about his illicit business, Chen told NPR he did not sell fentanyl or precursors and denied he was the person behind the moniker "King Sun."
Fentanyl From Mexico
“But I don’t have the ability to subpoena; I don’t have the ability to do anything like that, all I have is the ability to convince people to sell me stuff.” “I was under no illusion that what we were doing was going to be easy and that it was going to be something that the organization would quickly sign off on unless the lawyers had agreed to it.” 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.
Alternatives To Buying Fentanyl Legally
If you suspect someone is overdosing on fentanyl, call 911 immediately. Call an ambulance right away if you suspect you or someone you're with may have taken an overdose. Withdrawal symptoms typically start within 12 hours after your last dose of the drug. Most people need help from a health professional or program to successfully quit.
FDLE Seizes Enough Fentanyl To Kill Over 3M People In Pensacola Bust
In 2017, the company generated fentanyl-related sales revenue exceeding RMB2 billion, of which only RMB5 million originated from exports. Yichang Humanwell primarily focuses on China’s domestic market for its fentanyl products. Over the past two decades, Yichang Humanwell has emerged as one of the largest R&D and production centers for narcotic drugs in Asia, with five research centers in China, the United States, and Europe. It also exerts absolute dominance in the fentanyl-related products market. These companies have been given special permission to produce fentanyl APIs, injections, and transdermal patches for medical use. As of December 2023, Chinese authorities granted forty fentanyl production licenses to five domestic pharmaceutical companies (Table 3).
Stop Overdose
ASAP Market is not the only dark web marketplace to – supposedly inadvertently – facilitate the fentanyl trade. ASAP Market showing a listing of fentanyl, despite supposedly banning the sale of the drug. Many vendors still sell fentanyl on mainstream dark web markets, disguised using names such as “China White” and hashtags such as “fetty” or “synthetic”. Elliptic’s investigation into the role of crypto in the fentanyl trade has uncovered that these rules are often not strictly enforced. And in 2023, American enforcement agencies seized enough fentanyl to kill every citizen of the United States.
- As that case illustrates, along with the massive amount of fentanyl seizures being reported across the U.S., most of the fentanyl that crosses here moves on.
- 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.
- Nancy Pelosi, then House speaker, visited Taiwan over Beijing’s objections in 2022, which led Chinese leaders to refuse even discussing fentanyl with Washington.
- Tuesday's committee hearing will include testimony about China's role in illicit fentanyl trafficking from former U.S.
- China late last month announced it will add two more fentanyl precursors to its list of controlled substances – an expected step that brought it in line with international regulations, which its diplomats presented as a mark of “active participation” in global drug control.
Implications For Preventing Crypto Use In The Fentanyl Trade
China has had laws in place combating the illicit fentanyl trade for more than three decades. But the business model requires plenty of smaller subcontractors that specialize in importing fentanyl precursors, producing the drugs and transporting them across the border. Because illicit drugs come with no official oversight or quality control measures, they often contain lethal fentanyl doses. According to the DEA, fentanyl precursor chemicals are smuggled from China directly into Mexico as well as indirectly via the United States.
Most Fentanyl Enters The US Via Mexico
- This cluster of vendors receives fentanyl from a supplier based in Shanghai, China.
- The DEA says most of the illicit fentanyl comes from China, either shipped directly to U.S. consumers through the mail or mixed with heroin that is smuggled across the southern border by Mexican drug cartels.
- Our research shows that it is likely that some Chinese brokers are actively involved in the sale of chemicals on the darknet.
- Ltd., a pharmaceuticals maker registered in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, said the company had drastically reduced the number of synthetic opioids and other compounds it offered because of the heightened legal scrutiny in China.
- NPR has identified him but is not using his real name because of the illegal activity in which he's involved.
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. Test strips to detect fentanyl are inexpensive and typically give results within 5 minutes, which can be the difference between life or death. Drugs may contain deadly levels of fentanyl, and you wouldn't be able to see it, taste it, or smell it.
Fentanyl Crisis: How The US Gets Its Supply From China, Mexico And Canada
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration notes that the detected amount of Chinese fentanyl shipments has dropped dramatically since the ban. "But due to the openness, anonymity, convenience, cross-border nature of the Internet, any country would have a difficult time completely eradicating illegal information." Months after China's class ban last year, as tensions escalated between the Trump administration and the government under China's leader Xi Jinping, Chinese-made fentanyl compounds once again became a divisive topic. Sacks of coal byproducts await sale at a manufacturing site in northwestern China's Ningxia region, where Benjamin Chen works as a salesperson. Previously, Chinese narcotics authorities criminalized only specific fentanyl offshoots.
This makes evidence-based harm reduction strategies such as fentanyl test strips, safety planning, and access to safe supply more vital than ever. Overdose deaths involving fentanyl have quadrupled in recent years. Many individuals consume fentanyl without knowledge while others use it intentionally because of its potency. People use fentanyl because it is cheap to manufacture and a small amount goes a long way. If you do decide to buy fentanyl from China, make sure that you are buying from a reputable supplier, testing the fentanyl before using it, and starting with a low dose.
This drug stays in your system for hours. You also have trouble feeling pleasure from anything besides the drug. Avoid drinking alcohol for several hours after you take fentanyl. After a fentanyl treatment, you may have side effects that hinder your thinking and reactions or cause dizziness or drowsiness. You could inject a lot more fentanyl than you thought.
“China does not produce illegal products,” a representative said by email. “The real products are substitutes,” the company said in an email. “Our company has always respected China’s relevant business regulations, our company has never sold the products you mentioned.” Later, Caroline told the AP she was “shocked” to hear the AP had evidence of illicit substances on offer. Fentanyl, acetylfentanyl and alpha-PVP are controlled substances in both China and the U.S.
However, it is important to check the laws in your country before making a purchase. Yes, many suppliers offer small quantities of fentanyl for personal use. But it does not appear that China has sustained efforts to counter the now-more hidden illegal retail and has mounted raids against clandestine sales. These raids ended the openly-visible and blatant sales of illegal wildlife commodities.
