Acting Police Commissioner, Juki Fong Chew says the Fiji Police Force through the Narcotics Bureau, worked with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, that resulted in the arrest of two Chinese nationals who were in Fiji.
The two were arrested for the manufacturing of hard drugs internationally and this also exposes the major global drug operation.
Qingzhou Wang and Yiyi Chen, both nationals of China, were expelled from Fiji on June 8th, and then arrested by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
During these investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 200 kilograms of fentanyl-related precursor chemicals, a quantity that could contain enough deadly doses to kill 25 million Americans.
Fentanyl is a highly addictive synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.
The US Justice Department says a total of four China-Based Precursor Chemical Manufacturing Companies and eight executives and employees have been charged in the global supply chain disruption.
It says the arrest of two individuals and the unsealing of three indictments in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York charging China-based companies and their employees with crimes related to fentanyl production, distribution, and sales resulting from precursor chemicals.
These indictments represent the first prosecutions to charge China-based chemical manufacturing companies and nationals of the People’s Republic of China for trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States.
Specifically, the indictments allege the defendants knowingly manufactured, marketed, sold, and supplied precursor chemicals for fentanyl production in the United States in violation of federal law.
During these investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 200 kilograms of fentanyl-related precursor chemicals.
Fentanyl and its analogues have devastated communities across the United States and are fueling the ongoing overdose epidemic, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated killed approximately 110,000 Americans in 2022.
Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 49 years.
US Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco says the announcement is a down payment on their pledge to use every tool in the US government’s arsenal, in every corner of the globe, to protect American communities.
An indictment was unsealed in the Southern District of New York charging the China-based chemical company Hubei Amarvel Biotech Co. Ltd., aka AmarvelBio, (Amarvel Biotech), as well as its executives and employees Qingzhou Wang, 35, aka Bruce (Wang); Yiyi Chen, 31, aka Chiron (Chen); and Fnu Lnu, aka Er Yang and Anita (Yang), with fentanyl trafficking, precursor chemical importation, and money laundering offences.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York says they are targeting the very beginning of the fentanyl supply chain: the Chinese manufacturers of the raw chemicals used to make fentanyl and its analogues.
According to the allegations contained in the indictment and other court filings, Amarvel Biotech is a chemical manufacturer based in the city of Wuhan, in Hubei province, China, that has exported vast quantities of the precursor chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl and its analogues.
Amarvel Biotech has openly advertised online its shipment of fentanyl precursor chemicals to the United States and to Mexico, where drug cartels operate clandestine laboratories, synthesize finished fentanyl at scale, and distribute the deadly fentanyl into and throughout the United States.
Through its website and a host of other storefront sites, Amarvel Biotech has targeted precursor chemical customers in Mexico, including by advertising fentanyl precursors as a “Mexico hot sale;” guaranteeing “100% stealth shipping” abroad; and posting to its websites documentation of Amarvel Biotech shipping chemicals to Culiacan, Mexico, the home city of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the dominant drug trafficking organizations in the Western Hemisphere and which is largely responsible for the massive influx of fentanyl into the United States in recent years.
The Chinese company, Amarvel Biotech has also endeavored to thwart law enforcement interdiction of its precursor chemical shipments. Amarvel Biotech has advertised, for example, the company’s ability to use deceptive packaging – such as packaging indicating the contents are dog food, nuts, or motor oil – to ensure “safe” delivery to the United States and Mexico.
Over the past eight months, during an undercover investigation by the DEA, Amarvel Biotech and its principal executive, Wang, its marketing manager, Chen, and its sales representative, Yang, shipped more than 200 kilograms from China to the United States of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl and its analogues.
Amarvel Biotech, Wang, Chen, and Yang shipped the precursors to the United States intending that the chemicals would be used to produce fentanyl and its analogues in New York, and they agreed to continue supplying multi-ton shipments of fentanyl precursors despite being told that Americans had died after consuming fentanyl made from the chemicals that the defendants had sold.
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