Despite the Chinese regime banning fentanyl and its analogues in 2019, China remains the primary source of illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances being trafficked into the United States, according to a new report by a U.S. congressional advisory body.
Chinese traffickers have found sophisticated ways to circumvent these regulations, said an Aug. 24 U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) report. This includes shifting their business from manufacturing finished fentanyl to exporting precursors to Mexican cartels, who then produce and traffic the drug across the border.
Moreover, these evasion efforts have been enabled by the Chinese regime’s “weak supervision and regulation” of its chemical industry, the report said.
These findings come as U.S. agencies continue to grapple with the country’s devastating opioid crisis fueled by a surge in the use of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin, and its variants in recent years.
The United States in 2020 saw a record number of overdose deaths from synthetic opioids at more than 56,000—a rise of 20,000 from the year before, according to provisional data by the National Center for Health Statistics.
Chinese Traffickers Embrace Mexican Cartels
Since Beijing’s ban on fentanyl in 2019, there has been a decline in the amount of finished fentanyl shipped directly from China—typically by mail—into the country, the report said, but illicit fentanyl has remained widely available in the United States.
Now, the drug mainly comes in from Mexico, with precursors being sourced from China.
To evade authorities, Chinese traffickers have pivoted their operations to focus mainly on producing and shipping chemical precursors to Mexico, the USCC said, citing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). This has also meant that Chinese traffickers have increased their cooperation with Mexican cartels, particularly with the country’s two most powerful crime syndicates,