JOHANNESBURG—The Mexican organized crime group accused of fueling America’s fentanyl crisis is now making the deadly drug in Africa, according to local and international law enforcement agencies.
The Sinaloa cartel has chosen South Africa as a major operational base, they say, largely because of its strong trade links to China, which produces the chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid.
“At this stage, there isn’t a big market for fentanyl in Africa, so much of this drug that’s being made in underground labs on the continent is being smuggled into the United States, the biggest fentanyl market in the world,” said Lt. Gen. Godfrey Lebeya, chief of The Hawks, South Africa’s top police investigative unit.
Drug overdoses have killed an estimated 400,000 Americans since 2021, with the majority linked to fentanyl, according to statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In its legal prescription form, fentanyl is a highly effective painkiller.
Criminals, however, copy its chemical makeup in labs, from where it’s sold illegally as a powder, dropped onto blotter paper, put in eye droppers and nasal sprays, or made into pills that look like legitimate prescription opioids, said a report by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Lebeya told The Epoch Times that South African “drug traffickers and gangs linked to the Sinaloa cartel” are testing local narcotics markets.
“Fentanyl has definitely entered our trafficking conveyor belts; we know that because we’re arresting suspects who are in possession of it and they tell us, ‘We want to see if South Africans get a taste for fentanyl,’” he said.
“This is very concerning because we’ve seen the scale of America’s crisis and we don’t want our country to go the same way.
“But we must be realistic and admit that it’s possible that we end up with a tragedy of our own because fentanyl is much cheaper than the other drugs circulating in South Africa, like cocaine and heroin, and the Mexicans who are driving fentanyl use in America are now on our soil.”
In July, The Hawks raided what they later described as a “drugs superlab” in South Africa’s northern Limpopo province, seizing large quantities of methamphetamine, a small quantity of fentanyl, and about 500 pounds of chemicals used to manufacture both drugs.
South African farmer Roelof Botha, 57, and three Mexican citizens—Gonzales Jorge Partida, 51, Gutierrez Lopes, 43, and Rodriguez Ruben Vidan, 44—are awaiting trial for alleged manufacturing, dealing, and possession of illicit drugs, as well as money laundering.
“We’re still questioning the Mexican guys. They’re not saying much. But international partners have given us information that these men are working for the Sinaloa cartel,” Lebeya said.
Lufuno Sadiki, senior lecturer in the Centre of Criminology at the University of Cape Town, told The Epoch Times it’s “easy for Mexicans to blend in with locals” because they look very similar to mixed-race South Africans.
“It appears as if the Mexicans, mostly from the Sinaloa cartel, are linking up with the local gangs and showing them the ropes, so to speak, [with regard to] fentanyl,” she said.
“In exchange, the South Africans introduce the cartel guys to trusted contacts in the criminal underground and to corrupt officials.”
Professor Anthony Minnaar, a security risk management expert at the University of Limpopo, said organized crime groups are attracted to South Africa for several reasons.
“It’s the continent’s wealthiest economy with a banking system that’s linked internationally but is flawed,” he told The Epoch Times. “The country has well-established drug markets of its own and a plethora of drug-trafficking gangs.
“South Africa also offers regular flight connections to Central and South America, with its ports visited daily by vessels registered in Mexico.
“Then it has high volume trade traffic from China, and criminals are hiding chemicals used to make crystal meth and fentanyl in containers coming from China.
“South Africa also has a high level of official corruption.”
Professor Francois Steyn, head of the Department of Criminology at the University of the Free State, told The Epoch Times that the Sinaloa cartel had “probably been in South Africa for longer than we think,” maybe for more than a decade.
“We’re picking up evidence of this only now because our systems have improved over the past five years or so and so has our cooperation with American law enforcement,” he said.
“That fentanyl must have been made in South Africa or somewhere else in Africa. If that wasn’t the case, it’s still clear that South Africa is being used as a conduit to get fentanyl and other narcotics into the American market and other markets,” Steyn said.
In January, police found crystal meth and fentanyl worth 37 million rands (about $2 million) hidden in ornaments in a cargo shed at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg.
The shipment was headed to New Zealand.
“It’s really sad to know that our territory is being used to play a role in America’s fentanyl pandemic,” Lebeya said.
“But I’d like Americans to know we are cooperating with the relevant agencies in the United States and doing our best [to prevent fentanyl manufacturing and distribution.”
The indictment said that fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 49. At one stage, an average of 97 people were dying daily in cases involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment said the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels were the main, and most dangerous, criminal organizations in Mexico.
The assessment said the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels “operate extensive global supply chains, from precursor chemicals to production facilities, and direct a complex web of conspirators that includes international shippers, cross-border transporters, corrupt officials, tunnel builders, shell companies, money launderers, and others.”
Minnaar said it’s “great” that South Africa’s “cracking down” on fentanyl production, but that “it also has to come to the party with regard to stopping the flow of precursor chemicals” from China into the country.
“We won’t stop crystal meth and fentanyl production by arresting a few Mexicans,” he said. “We can only achieve this with legislation that severely limits chemical imports from China.”
This, however, is “tricky,” said Steyn, as China is South Africa’s largest bilateral trade partner.
“If we want to stop crime, we have to get politics out of the way and ignore the government’s tight relations with Beijing. We have to risk offending Beijing otherwise we’re going nowhere fast in this fight,” he said.
“We have to take a leaf out of America’s book.”
The Biden administration has cracked down on chemical imports from China.
In October, the United States charged eight chemical companies and eight employees based in China for attempting to distribute synthetic opioids and precursor chemicals used to make the drugs.
“In order to break this critical link in the fentanyl supply chain, the Justice Department has aggressively investigated and prosecuted these companies.
“We will continue to target every organization and individual that fuels the deadly drug trade.”
Some of the Chinese companies involved “demonstrated past success delivering a stable supply of product to clients in Mexico and the United States for years,” the statement said.
“One of the companies even represented that every month it sends ‘more than 20 kilograms [of synthetic opioids or precursor chemicals] to the United States, Africa, Canada, and other countries,’” it said.
