Justice Department reveals charges against Chinese fentanyl distributors
WASHINGTON – U.S. prosecutors have charged two Chinese nationals who sold fentanyl to American customers over the Internet in a massive international conspiracy case, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
The case is unique, the Justice Department said, because the men are the first Chinese-based fentanyl manufacturers and distributors to be slapped with a label reserved for those who have control of the most prolific international drug trafficking and money laundering organizations.
Prosecutors identified the Chinese men charged in the case as 40-year-old Xiaobing Yan and 38-year-old Jian Zhang.
Yan, the Justice Department alleged, operated websites selling fentanyl directly to U.S. customers, and he also ran at least two chemical plants in China that were capable of producing tons of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. Zhang, the department alleged, similarly ran an enterprise that made fentanyl in at least four labs in China, and he advertised and sold fentanyl over the Internet.
At a news conference to announce the charges, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the cases “mark a major milestone in our battle to stop deadly fentanyl from entering the United States.” The men were labeled Consolidated Priority Organization Targets and are the first Chinese-based manufacturers to be given the designation.
It is unclear whether the men could ever be brought to the U.S. to face charges. Rosenstein said China has no extradition treaty with the U.S., though U.S. authorities would share the evidence in the case with their Chinese counterparts and were “optimistic” that the Chinese would take some sort of action.
Rosenstein said he was in China two weeks ago meeting with China’s minister of public security about fentanyl and other issues.
“They are, in fact, helping us, but we need them to do more,” Rosenstein said.
Federal authorities have long been warning of the dangers of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that often contributes to overdoses and is sometimes added to heroin or cocaine. The substance is so dangerous, authorities have said, that it has sickened emergency responders merely handling the drug.
Rosenstein said the Centers for Disease Control estimated that more than 20,000 Americans were killed by fentanyl and fentanyl analogues in 2016. Investigators think nearly all of it and its components originates in China, he said.
The cases against Yan and Zhang originated domestically. In Yan’s case, Rosenstein said, a 2013 traffic stop in Mississippi helped unearth a drug ring selling bath salts, and investigators working that case identified Yan as a distributor of several illegal drugs.
His illicit work, Rosenstein alleged, spanned at least six years and included monitoring legislation and law enforcement activities in the U.S. and China to try to evade prosecution. Fentanyl’s chemical structure, Rosenstein said, can be modified to create analogues that are inside the bounds of U.S. and Chinese law. Federal agents identified more than 100 distributors of synthetic opioids in Yan’s network, Rosenstein said.
Investigators were tipped to Zhang, Rosenstein said, as they investigated the 2015 death of an 18-year-old who had overdosed on fentanyl in North Dakota. Tracing the source of the substance that killed the teen took those working the case through Oregon, Canada and eventually to Zhang in China, Rosenstein said.
Authorities found that Zhang had shipped thousands of packages of fentanyl and other drugs to the U.S. since January 2013, Rosenstein said. Charges against him included conduct resulting in the deaths of four people from North Carolina, New Jersey, North Dakota and Oregon in 2014 and 2015, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said both Zhang and Yang were charged with conspiracy to distribute drugs and related counts, and 21 people in total had been indicted on drug charges as part of the investigation.
If convicted, Yan would face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; Zhang would face life in prison, prosecutors said.