Playing with Chinese. This is how to buy chemicals for fentanyl production [OKO.PRESS INVESTIGATION]

Publikujemy angielską wersję cyklu 4 reportaży Szymona Opryszka, które ukazały się w OKO.press.

Reporterskie śledztwo OKO.press. Pojechałem do Meksyku śladem sfałszowanych tabletek znanego leku z domieszką fentanylu. Mafia bałkańska miała je ściągnąć do Europy Wschodniej. Spotkałem się z kucharzem fentanylu w meksykańskim stanie Sinaloa. Nawiązałem kontakt ze sprzedawcami prekursorów tego narkotyku w Chinach. Rozmawiałem z afgańskimi rolnikami opium i wieloma ekspertami od rynku narkotyków i bezpieczeństwa publicznego.

W czteroodcinkowym śledztwie szukam odpowiedzi na pytanie: Czy Europie grozi kryzys fentanylu?

Poniżej angielska wersja III części reportażu Szymona Opryszka

OKO.press reporter’s investigation. I went to Mexico looking for counterfeit tablets of a well-known drug with fentanyl mixed into it. The Balkan mafia was supposed to bring them into Eastern Europe. I met a fentanyl cook in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. I made contact with the sellers of this drug’s precursors in China. I talked to some Afghan opium farmers and many experts on the narcotics and public safety market.

In this four-part investigation, I look for answers to the question of: Is Europe under threat of a fentanyl crisis?

English version of part I is here:

English version of part II is here:

Below is part III od Szymon Opryszek reportage.

Feel the chemistry, discreet delivery

Wendy had Asian features; her hair was pinned up in a bun. Her navy blue jacket added to her professionalism. Her soft make-up gave her a girlish charm. She liked specifics and well-encrypted messengers.

‘We have the best quality chemicals for research at the best prices,’ she greeted Fernando in a chat. The Mexican was looking for a new supplier. He was browsing through ads of chemical laboratories in China. And they were waiting there: beautiful and competent. Sales consultants. They were answering quickly and pleasantly. They knew how to joke. They all had touched-up photographs and Western-sounding names: Sara, Grace, Sophia, Daisy and finally Wendy.

‘Feel the chemistry,’ read one advert. Another: ‘Our specialization, your confidence. Innovative technology and high quality ensure we are constantly committed to satisfying market and customer needs.’ Key phrases such as ‘discreet delivery,’ ‘no customs problems’, and ‘free reshipment’ were promises of successful business.

Perhaps Fernando did not state directly that he was working for a Mexican cartel, but was clearly hinting this. This made no impression on Wendy. She had pseudoephedrine, 3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine, Alprazolam, Pregabalin and 3′,4′-methylenedioxy-α-pyrrolidinohexiophenone on offer, but after all, with that smile, she could sell a pig in a poke to anyone.

‘I’m looking for fentanyl precursors,’ wrote Fernando, meaning NPP and 4-ANPP, which are needed for the production of fentanyl by the cocineros, the Mexican chefs. She instantly quoted the price.

‘What about delivery?’

‘We guarantee safe door-to-door delivery.’

‘To Mexico?’

‘Of course.’

‘What about Europe?’

‘Everywhere. We send by post or ship, depending on the order quantity.’

‘Payment?’

‘Cryptocurrencies. You order, pay and you have the goods in a few weeks.’

Fernando asks Daisy how much the precursors cost

I posed as Fernando to see if I could order fentanyl precursors to Europe.

In a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report, I read that Chinese pharmaceutical companies are supplying Mexican criminal organizations with precursor chemicals and pill presses which are needed to produce drugs, including fentanyl.

China is the world’s largest producer of APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients), including on the illegal market. That is why almost all the whole of the world’s methamphetamine is produced from Chinese precursors.

China is also a global container hub, which allows for easy and cheap transportation of illegal goods to Mexico’s Pacific coast, where most of the ports are controlled by the cartels. This maritime route has been operating since the beginning of the 2000s, when Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, who is now serving a life sentence, started to work with the Chinese triads (including ‘14K’, one of the largest gangs in the world responsible for heroin and opium trafficking from China or Southeast Asia). Today, the Mexican cartels use international networks of brokers who are responsible for financial transactions and wholesale purchases of substances directly from China.

I had been trying to make contact with precursor vendors for several months. I did not have to delve into the underground of the darknet at all; their offers were available on official websites and pharmaceutical company databases. I talked over messengers and exchanged e-mails as if I was buying dog food. I compared offers. Sara, Grace, Sofia and Daisy offered affordable prices and a variety of products: most often methamphetamine precursors and pseudoephedrine.

I was not planning on buying fentanyl, but it turned out that Reuters journalists were simultaneously conducting a similar activity. They published a special report in July 2024 (link: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/drugs-fentanyl-supplychain/). They also talked to Daisy and bought enough precursors to produce 3 million tablets. They received 12 packages with the chemicals they ordered to addresses in Mexico and the U.S. They summed it up as follows: ‘Anyone with a mailbox, an internet connection and digital currency to pay the tab can source these chemicals.’

I’m not Chinese, my conscience is troubling me

I was more interested in creating a trustworthy relationship.

J. didn’t pretend to be a sexy Asian woman and wrote directly that he does not like working as a ‘sales manager’. After exchanging a dozen or so e-mails, I admitted to being a reporter. ‘I know too much. About darknet retailing and all that underground business. I would be pleased to tell you, because my conscience is troubling me that I’m a part of it,’ he wrote in one of his e-mails, although this sounded naive.

I insisted on a live conversation. One of the addresses posted on the website of his company, which sells precursors, was in India, in the Tajganj district of Agra to be precise, barely fifteen minutes’ walk from the Taj Mahal.

The other was in the eastern outskirts of the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, a former centre of heavy industry that had become transformed into a centre for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry in the last decade. The satellite images showed that these were areas lying fallow outside one of the city’s ring roads.

I found a third address in the database of global laboratories; the company was supposed to be located in a hospital in Chengde. Both of the Chinese cities are in the Hebei province. According to the research conducted by an analytical company, Elliptic, one in three Chinese suppliers of illegal precursors comes from the province surrounding Beijing.

J. did not agree to a meeting, he wanted to remain ‘totally anonymous’. A few days later, he wanted a bribe: $1,500 payable in cryptocurrencies or via Western Union to the address of a friendly orphanage in Africa. ‘I’m taking a big risk,’ he argued.

I had no intention of paying him, but I convinced him that I needed a ‘preliminary interview’ to help me prepare for the actual interview. We arranged a meeting over Skype.

He admitted that he was not Chinese, but he had studied there and learned Mandarin. Then he met his wife and they have two children. He has been working in the laboratory, where he is responsible for international sales, for 11 years.

We pack, ship and attach a tutorial

‘It’s a business like any other. The only thing that matters is sales,’ says J. ‘Officially, we specialize in sales of sodium chloride and other substances used in the pharmaceutical and food industries. A great deal of competition, lower margins and ever newer restrictions have forced us to look for customers outside the legal markets.

‘Such as the Mexican cartels?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t usually ask customers what they do.’

‘So what do you ask?’

‘How much? Where? And should I attach instructions. It’s very easy to synthesize precursors into a final version of fentanyl. But not all of our customers are chemists. That’s why we attach a tutorial.’

‘And what then?’

‘They pay. They give an address. We pack. And we ship.’

We focus on underground innovations

The Chinese chemical industry is the largest in the world. According to the European Chemical Industry Council, sales amounted to $1.7 trillion three years ago and are still growing.

Foreign Policy estimates, that 160,000 companies in the country produce chemicals with ‘relatively little oversight from the government.’ Only the largest producers of APIs, which supply medical fentanyl to wholesalers and hospitals around the world, are subject to strict controls. The rest, namely around 1,600 small companies spread throughout China, constitute the backbone of the industry, but are forced to find their niche, often among criminal organizations.

When J. started working in sales, there were six variants of fentanyl on the market. 63 were recorded in 2016 alone. The following year, the UN member states included two key precursors, NPP and 4-ANPP, on the list of narcotic drugs under international control for the first time. After receiving pressure from American diplomacy, the Chinese government did this two years later. As a result, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), shipments of fentanyl from China directly to the U.S. ‘have dropped significantly’.

J.: ‘The authorities decided that the precursors we have been producing for years are suddenly illegal and subject to controls. What choice do we have? To close the company? To lay people off? What would someone who has been producing precursors all his life do?’

‘Change industry?’

‘No! We are doing the same as before, only quietly. All payments are made in cryptocurrencies. This is total underground. If you operate behind closed doors, you don’t have a problem with the Chinese government. We are constantly focusing on “innovation” to maintain a semblance of legality.’

Fentanyls differ, but the customer is not picky

Fentanyl has numerous variants with similar-sounding names; they are chemically different, but they have similar effects on the body.

J. compares the mechanism of their production to baking a cake. ‘You need butter, but that can be replaced with butter-like margarine (namely changing the precursor’s chemical structure, for example, by replacing a hydrogen atom with a fluorine atom). You can also sell the customer cream (as if you are taking a step backwards in production, which can be done with so-called pre-precursors), from which the buyer creates butter.’ J. says customers are not picky; the only thing they care about is the end result, namely the cake.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated that chemists would be able to synthesize ‘thousands of other fentanyl analogues.’ In this way, they outpace the law: they sell a seemingly legal substance until the variant is noticed by the services and included on the list of narcotic drugs under international control.

Last year, experts from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), who monitor compliance by national governments with the UN drug control conventions, counted 153 substances related to fentanyl.

‘The inclusion of a substance on the list of narcotic drugs under international control does not solve the problem, because it can very quickly be replaced by another,’ Reiner Pungs, an expert on precursor trade at the UNODC office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, tells me. ‘This is a global challenge to cope with the increasing number of chemicals. Because frequently they are, in fact, legal substances needed in various industries in every country.

Supply chains: China – Germany – Jalisco cartel

The weakness of the global regulatory system is illustrated by the case of the brothers, Carlos and Javier Algredo, from Mexico, who had been supplying fentanyl and methamphetamine precursors to the Jalisco cartel for years. It arises from the indictment of the U.S. prosecutors that one of the transit countries was Germany, the largest chemicals producer in Europe.

‘The network sent numerous chemicals from Germany to Mexico during that time, including 48 tons of sorbitol, 443.5 tons of sodium carbonate, and 20 tons of hypophosphorous acid, all essential chemicals that can be used to produce fentanyl and methamphetamine but none of which were on German watch lists,’ wrote insightcrime.org journalists. They conducted a detailed analysis of the Agredo brothers’ supply chains.

Reiner Pungs cites the example of methamphetamine, which was produced by Mexican cartels more than a decade ago on the basis of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from Asia. Indian and Chinese companies exported the chemicals legally through Europe or Africa to Mexico. ‘And when Mexico finally banned them, the cartels outpaced the law and started replacing them with other substances,’ adds the expert.

The case is similar today with fentanyl. When larger quantities of new analogues and precursors, such as boc-4-piperidone, 2-phenethyl bromide and para-fluorofentanyl, appeared on the market three years ago, the UN member states quickly added them to the list of narcotic drugs under international control. China did the same, but with a two-year delay, namely in August of this year – as a result of an agreement between President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China.

China: America is sick

According to analysts, this is a ‘small breakthrough’. Especially as counter-narcotics cooperation between the two powers came to a standstill at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2022, the Chinese government suspended the cooperation after Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives at that time, visited Taiwan. In response, Biden added China to the U.S. list of the largest narcotic-producing countries.

‘The drug problem of America is a long-standing and deep-rooted disease that is yet to be cured. (…) The United States should stop making unwarranted accusations against China and undermining China-U.S. counter-narcotics cooperation,’ declared the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.

The Americans accused at least a dozen Chinese suppliers and imposed sanctions on over 65 people for trading in illegal substances in 2023 alone.

The effects can be seen on the websites of the laboratories which, until recently, were offering illegal fentanyl precursors, such as AmarvelBio, on the darknet. A message about the DEA’s seizure of the website appears there.

America: The Chinese are using fentanyl as a weapon

‘A geopolitical tug-of-war,’ says a U.S. expert on narcotics and criminal organizations, who wants to remain anonymous with regard to ‘political issues’. ‘The new controls on three precursors introduced by China are nothing more than an image trick. The intention is to mask the Chinese party’s complicity in the U.S. opioid crisis.’

He refers me to the April report of the United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. The authors presented firm evidence that some producers of synthetic narcotics are fully or partially owned by entities and people connected with the Chinese government. The communist authorities have not only been granting subsidies and awards to companies trading online in illegal fentanyl for years, but have also been offering laboratories high VAT relief on synthetic drugs: as much as 13% compared to the standard relief of 3%, 6% and 9% for other goods. Of course, on condition that the chemicals are exported to other countries.

‘This is the subsidization of exports of substances that were and are illegal under Chinese law,’ I read in the report. And further: ‘Last year, a Chinese chemical producer sent a surrogate agent enough fentanyl precursors to be able to produce over 25 million lethal doses.’

‘But, after all, don’t China and India, the other leading producer of APIs in the region, conduct strict inspections and close down suspicious plants?’ I ask the expert. I am basing this on data, because 173 illegal laboratories were closed down in China in 2023 alone.

‘Propaganda,’ he retorts. ‘China supplies 80% of methamphetamine precursors and almost 95% of fentanyl precursors to the Mexican cartels. Tons of illegal tramadol and its precursors flow to Africa. Chinese ketamine is flooding Southeast Asia, while fentanyl analogues from China arrive in Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.’

David Saucedo, Mexican security analyst says ‘China is using fentanyl as a weapon in diplomatic negotiations against the U.S. It looks as if it will continue to allow the export of fentanyl or its precursors. And this will continue for a long time, until other issues, such as the matter of Taiwan, are resolved.’

Laundering dollars, Chinese style

‘The synthetic drug market in East and Southeast Asia is expanding at a disturbing rate and will continue to grow,’ admits Pungs, an expert on precursors, and emphasizes that India and Pakistan are following in China’s footsteps, while there has recently been a boom in opium cultivation in Myanmar. ‘The crime map has also changed. Gangs which once dealt only with drugs are now also laundering money and committing cybercrimes.’

In an interview with the ‘Breitbart’ portal, Terry Cole, a former DEA agent with 22 years of experience, summed up that it is ‘state-sponsored drug trafficking’. ‘The Chinese have established themselves as the global leader in money laundering, fentanyl distribution, and precursor chemical manufacturing/distribution. They often launder money at zero cost to the drug trafficking organization. The Chinese government has a unique way of currency manipulation that allows money launderers to make their profit on the back end,’ said Cole.

Specialist brokers operating in China’s underground banking systems have created a laundering scheme based on a three-way exchange of cash. Wealthy Chinese people send low-value goods by ship to Mexico. These are bought by firms nominated by the cartels. They then resell the goods to the so-called chinos, popular shops in Latin American countries run by Chinese immigrants, who save on customs and import duties in this way. The result of the exchange of goods is that everyone is happy. The wealthy Chinese have dollars that they would not have taken out of the country through official trade. The retailers in the shops have cheaper goods. And the laundered money ends up in Mexican accounts.

In the last five years, U.S. prosecutors charged 20 Chinese citizens with such financial machinations. The most famous convict, Xizhi Li, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in a U.S. prison for laundering $30 million for the cartels.

Transactions in cryptocurrencies are the norm. The suppliers I was in contact with preferred payments in bitcoins, even though they have been illegal in China for three years.

For the services, this is harder to detect: they deal with thousands of streams of virtual money, instead of a river of cash for, say, tons of cocaine, as was the case two decades ago.

In the report prepared by Elliptic, a company that analyses blockchain and cryptocurrencies, while examining the virtual wallets of illegal sellers, the authors pointed out that the income from illegal transactions regarding precursors (not only fentanyl) can amount to as much as $32 million per year in cryptoassets – mainly bitcoin and tether.

This is a huge scale, especially since one of the Chinese vendors offered me a kilogram of the 4-ANPP precursor for $1,570.

Even dogs can’t smell it

‘Hi Fernando. We can deliver 4anpp and alprazolam powder. (…) Yes, we accept cryptocurrency or a bank transfer as payment.

1 kg 4anpp/$1,570.

1 kg Alprazolam/$75,000.

The products will be shipped from Hong Kong and will pass through customs without any problems. You will receive something completely different. After opening the package, you will find the product vacuum-packed and wrapped in foil to prevent X-ray detection. The goods will be hermetically sealed so that even dogs will not be able to sniff out the hidden contents.’ I received such an e-mail from one of the vendors, who wrote to me after I spoke to Wendy, a charming consultant in a jacket.

We exchanged a dozen or so e-mails, his English was correct, he focused on specifics. Not once did he sign his surname or even his forename, and he silently ignored my enquiries about his personal details and the possibility of meeting in person.

He wanted to close the deal, to convince me that the ‘test deal’ would go through and we would be able to ‘continue the long-term cooperation’.

I tried to negotiate a lower amount, so I proposed buying in bulk. The seller sent another offer, in which he described the whole of the process in detail, which confirms, for example, Reuters’ findings. Chinese vendors often ship chemicals with legal commercial goods, using front companies to create the semblance of legality. The agency’s journalists received the precursors packed in cat food bags. They are also often shipped in bottles labelled as car shampoo.

‘We can make 10 kg. Total cost: $12,870.75

Do you need any other chemicals? Other ingredients or compounds for synthesising the opioid, such as propionyl chloride or acetyl chloride? We have a stock. The package will go through without any problems; in the worst case, we will resend. We have had almost no interceptions of parcels. The shipping company is an international retail store that sells and ships various types of items around the world for us. Your order will look as if it is an item ordered from their AliExpress store. I will tell you how the product will be hidden inside. It may be brown or white stevia sweetener, vanilla sugar, powdered sunflower seeds, powdered sea cucumber or household appliances. Our network is well-developed. Security will always be a priority, because we can only make a profit if everything goes smoothly. (…) If everything is in order, we will operate for a long time without any problems.’

Why would a dealer kill his customer?

‘Is fentanyl a threat to Europe?’ I asked J., whose customers include Poles, Britons, the Dutch, Romanians and, primarily, Ukrainians and Bulgarians.

‘This is a tough market. Firstly, you have strict customs regulations. It’s much easier to send a parcel to the U.S. than to Sweden or Great Britain.’

‘What else?’

‘I don’t see any interest in Europe. You look for a different experience than the Americans.’ After a while, he sends me a video of a ‘shipment to Europe’. The hand of a supposedly satisfied customer unpacks the foil and, in a moment, the ephedrine becomes visible. ‘In Poland, you like sudo [slang name for pseudoephedrine] and psychedelic 2C-B. And, obviously, crystal. We mainly send it to Eastern Europe and New Zealand. This is far more lucrative than fentanyl.’

I asked the same question of the other people to whom I talked.

U.S. narcotics expert: ‘Since we’re talking about geopolitics and China, the key question is: what could the Chinese want from Europe? It appears that they are focused on competing with the U.S. and developing influence in other parts of the world, such as Africa.’

David Saucedo, an analyst from Mexico: ‘Europe has one advantage over the U.S. It isn’t such a receptive market and has a ten-year advantage over the States. You have seen the opioid crisis; this is enough time to find tools to control and counteract supplies from China.’

‘I’m more concerned about whether Europe is ready for fentanyl as a substitute for other drugs,’ responds Reinar Reiner Pungs, an expert on precursor trade. ‘If you talk to most people, they will say “No, fentanyl will not come to us, it’s too dangerous. Why would a drug dealer kill his customer when it’s so difficult to control the amount of fentanyl that causes an overdose; after all, we are talking about milligrams.” There’s a stable market for cocaine, although, after the decline in the number of seizures in the Netherlands and Belgium this year, we can see that its value is declining. The Taliban have banned the cultivation of opium poppies and all other drugs in Afghanistan, so now the main producer is Myanmar. They have never supplied Europe, but will they do this? These are the questions we face every day. It is like following an octopus.’

This octopus’s tentacles reach into Afghanistan, which is controlled by the Taliban, and Turkey, which turns a blind eye to the increasing drug trafficking. It is to these countries that the last episode of the OKO.press investigative report will take us.

Sources:

1. China Primer: Illicit Fentanyl and China’s Role, 2024, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10890
2. DEA, Federal Indictment Alleges Alliance Between Sinaloa Cartel and Money Launderers Linked to Chinese Underground Banking, 18/06/2024, https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2024/06/18/federal-indictment-alleges-alliance-between-sinaloa-cartel-and-money
3. Liu, ‘How China Trapped Itself in America’s Fentanyl Crisis’, Foreign Policy, 10/07/2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/10/china-fentanyl-crisis-america-mexico-api-manufacture-banking/
4. Jones, Mexican Chemists Help Sinaloa Cartel Cut China Out of Fentanyl Trade, 02/04/2020, https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/04/02/exclusive-mexican-chemists-help-sinaloa-cartel-cut-china-out-of-fentanyl-trade/
5. DEA, National Drug Threat Assessment 2024, https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/NDTA_2024.pdf
6. Tamman, L.Gottesdiener, S. Eisenhammer, We bought everything needed to make $3 million worth of fentanyl, Reuters, 25/07/2024, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/drugs-fentanyl-supplychain/
7. Garcia, Beyond China: How Other Countries Provide Precursor Chemicals to Mexico, 28/02/2024, https://insightcrime.org/investigations/beyond-china-other-countries-provide-precursor-chemicals-mexico/
8. The Select Committee on the strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, The CCP’s role in the fentanyl crisis, 2024, https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/The%20CCP's%20Role%20in%20the%20Fentanyl%20Crisis%204.16.24%20(1).pdf
9. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The People’s Republic of China, Drug Abuse in the United States, 23/02/2023, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zy/gb/202405/t20240531_11367481.html
10. ‘Crypto and the Global Fentanyl Trade’, Elliptic Report 2023
11. Farah, Fourth Transnational Criminal Wave: New Extra Regional Actors and Shifting Markets Transform Latin America’s Illicit Economies and Transnational Organized Crime Alliances, 19/06/2024, https://icaie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ICAIE-DF-Authored-Fourth-Transnational-Criminal-Wave_-New-Extra-Regional-Actors-and.pdf
12. Martínez-Oró, Ministerio de Sanidad de Espana, Fentanilo en España. Evidencias, percepciones y realidades, 2024, https://www.epistemesocial.org/wp-content/uploads/Fentanilo-en-Espana.-Evidencias-percepciones-y-realidades_web.pdf
13. EU Drug Market: New psychoactive substances — Distribution and supply in Europe: New opioids, EUDA, 2024, https://www.euda.europa.eu/sites/default/files/pdf/31840_en.pdf?43407

This article was prepared with the support of Journalismfund Europe.

The report was prepared with the support of the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation