The United States needs to ramp up enforcement against every aspect of the manufacturing and trafficking of fentanyl and other deadly synthetic drugs if it hopes to stem the crisis, several experts told The Epoch Times.
With every passing day, however, the path to success gets narrower as the criminal organizations involved grow more sophisticated.
More than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses last year, with more than 70,000 having overdosed on synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. government has poured billions of dollars into addiction treatment, but the drugs are too broadly available for the treatment to stick, some experts said, arguing that the supply needs to be drastically curbed.
Illicit fentanyl usually comes across the southern border from Mexico, where it’s manufactured from chemicals made in China and is pressed into pills that often look like prescription drugs such as Xanax, Adderall, or oxycodone.
Steps by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to regulate the export of illicit chemicals have been dismissed by the experts as cosmetic. Instead, they say, the regime is using drugs as a strategic weapon against the United States.
“This is a chemical war that we’re facing, and no one’s treating it as a war,” Derek Maltz, former head of special operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), told The Epoch Times.
“People are treating it as a drug issue. It’s not a drug issue. It’s the No. 1 threat to our national security.”
Both the Trump and the Biden administrations have managed to press China to impose additional regulations on fentanyl, as well as its analogs and precursors, but the measures “lack teeth” because they fail to impose “substantial costs” on illicit producers, according to Andrew Harding, a research assistant in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian studies center.
“As long as the producers can stay quiet and evade law enforcement, they will continue to produce,” he told The Epoch Times.
But he acknowledged that “there continues to be a significant supply of precursor chemicals out of [China].”
“There’s obviously a whole lot more to do. And that’s why these ongoing conversations and engagements are so important, even if we’re taking small steps one at a time,” the official said.
However, the experts suggested that the time for small steps and engagement has passed as China’s actions hint at intentionality.
“This is all part of their strategic plan, in my opinion, to harm America,” Maltz said.
“It’s part of the unrestricted warfare game, and that’s what’s happening. And they’re actually very successful, because America is not taking care of business, and America is not taking it seriously.”
The Select Committee on CCP found that Beijing was subsidizing illicit chemical exports, providing tax rebates specifically on sales of chemicals that are often not only illegal in China but lack legitimate use beyond making illegal drugs. Some of the rebates were even higher than those offered on any other export products.
It also found evidence that the regime was intentionally making it difficult for foreigners to find information about the rebates.
However, the Biden administration stopped short of endorsing this conclusion.
“We do not have any information to support that finding, that [China] is actually subsidizing these exports,” the senior administration official said. “There’s a need for an ongoing conversation about that.”
The White House didn’t respond to a list of questions emailed by The Epoch Times.
To truly solve the crisis, the experts say, the United States needs to hit every chokepoint along the trafficking chain. And it must be done fast.
“We’re losing hundreds of thousands of Americans. What’s going to happen in a few years?” Maltz asked.
“They’re not going to be filling jobs that are important down the line. They’re not going to be going to college, they’re not going to be getting professional jobs, they’re not going to be helping our society. They’re going to be gone.”
The government is already playing catch-up with traffickers, he noted.
Cartels and other criminal organizations are increasingly trafficking synthetic drugs even more powerful than fentanyl, such as xylazine and nitazenes. Xylazine is particularly abhorrent since it causes tissue necrosis, and its overdose can’t be reversed using naloxone—a drug that can counteract an overdose caused by opioids, including fentanyl, if administered quickly.
If the fentanyl crisis is likened to cancer, the United States is already in an advanced stage, according to Michael Brown, formerly a DEA agent for more than 30 years, who now heads counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices.
So far, it should still be possible to crack down on the supply of fentanyl precursor chemicals, perhaps with the aid of artificial intelligence, according to Brown. But the precursor chemicals have their own precursors, too. If the cartel labs become so sophisticated as to manufacture fentanyl precursors from chemicals that are too general in purpose to be effectively tracked, it will be even more difficult to root the problem out, he said.
Pressure on CCP and Mexico
“An effective U.S. strategy to combat the international fentanyl trafficking industry should begin with the recognition that the United States lacks good-faith partners in both the Chinese and Mexican governments,” a recent Heritage report coauthored by Harding reads.The CCP has not only been unwilling to address the issue constructively but has, in fact, used it as a bargaining chip to force concessions from the United States on technology sales, Harding said.
The Mexican government, in the meantime, seems to be under the profound influence of the cartels, according to the experts.
“All those chemicals ... are coming in and they’re coming in freely because people are being paid off, and the Mexican government allows it,” Victor Avila, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent with Homeland Security Investigations, told The Epoch Times.
The only way to induce cooperation would be to twist the hands of governments, some of the experts say. The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on more than 300 entities and individuals tied to fentanyl trafficking, but it’s not clear if that has produced any tangible effect.
Sanctions would only be effective if they hit major companies, according to Brown.
In 2019, China had more than 23,000 chemical companies and about 5,000 produced pharmaceutical precursors. The Chinese chemical industry produces some $1.5 trillion in annual revenue. That’s about 40 percent of the world’s chemical market, he noted.
If a few small Chinese chemical companies are sanctioned, it doesn’t make much of a splash. But if a major Chinese company is targeted, that would get the attention of the Chinese regime and create a deterrent, Brown told The Epoch Times.
With its extensive internet monitoring, the CCP, sufficiently motivated, should be able to sniff out fentanyl precursor traffickers, the Select Committee on CCP report states.
The CCP could also share useful information with the United States.
“If China was sincere about helping the U.S. with the crisis, it would have agreed to share information on chemical shipments with the U.S. and Mexico so that they can be tracked,” Brown said.
Intercepting Packages
The United States should use its navy and the coast guard to interdict suspicious maritime shipments from China to Mexico before they reach cartel-controlled ports, the Select Committee on CCP report stated.But because fentanyl is so potent, precursor chemicals are often sent in smaller quantities by air, Brown said.
Packages from China to Mexico are usually shipped through Alaska, giving the United States an opportunity to check them on the way, he noted.
“Customs and Border Protection have access to those parcels. If they can identify a suspected parcel, they can go in and actually seize it.”
Sometimes, the chemicals are sent to a front company that looks like a drug maker but in fact doesn’t produce anything. A background check would reveal it as fake.
Precursor chemicals can also be shipped to a legitimate pharmaceutical company and then diverted to cartels. In that case, the company’s production wouldn’t match the quantity of precursors it’s ordering.
It’s extremely common, however, for the packages to be mislabeled, Brown said. The only way to intercept them then would be to check packages en masse using detection dogs or devices that can identify chemicals. Not all packages would need to be checked, but it would need to be a percentage large enough to serve as a deterrent.
Such checks could be made much more effective through the use of artificial intelligence to recognize suspicious patterns, he said.
“Does it make sense for somebody in Mexico to order 500 pounds of pool cleaner from China? AI would say, ‘I don’t like this. Maybe take a look at it,’ right?”
Focusing on shipping has the added benefit of minimizing the civil rights impact of false positives. Nobody needs to be arrested or stopped by police to check a package during transit. International packages are already subject to investigation by customs officers, so there’s no privacy intrusion.
Targeting Cartel Labs
More than 100 “super labs” operated by cartels in Mexico produce fentanyl and press it into pills, Avila said.The first step should be to designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, he recommended.
“Let’s start there, because that’s what they are. You designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations now, you treat them just like ISIS, just like the Taliban, just like al Qaeda, exactly the same, meaning that no longer do you do even what I used to do as a special agent—those investigative techniques are stale and outdated. You need to go after these guys using Department of Defense resources.”
There’s a chance the United States could convince the Mexican government to cooperate with U.S. military operations against cartels.
“We have good informant networks in Mexico and we know where ... a lot of these production labs are. We could definitely get access to their locations. So we should be destroying those production labs, because without the chemicals, without the labs, you can’t produce the poison,” Maltz said.
Securing the Border
“Having a wide-open border, and that’s what we have now, is facilitating the ability for these cartels and for these criminals to get these substances into America, because our resources are being overwhelmed,” Maltz said.When the Border Patrol has its hands full processing hundreds of thousands of people illegally crossing the border, that’s when the drugs can pour in undetected.
To stem the influx of illegal immigrants, the government can significantly ramp up enforcement, Avila said.
He recalled a time when people would get prosecuted and sent to jail for illegally crossing the border before being removed.
“Guess what? They didn’t want to come back, because the next time they would come back, it would double their sentence just for coming into the country illegally,” he said.
The government could also use much more broad administrative removals that quickly send illegal immigrants back without the need for a lengthy deportation proceeding.
Increased enforcement would then create a disincentive for future illegal immigrants.
“The illegals and the cartels, they listen to every single word that our politicians and elected officials say. They know exactly what’s going on,” Avila said.
Going After Dealers
Former President Donald Trump, the current Republican presidential nominee, has repeatedly suggested imposing the death penalty on drug traffickers, although he has also said the country might not be “ready” for it.“If a drug dealer sells that illicit fentanyl pill that kills somebody, they’re going to be charged with homicide, rather than just a drug trafficking offense,” Avila said.
There has long been an argument that drug dealers wouldn’t knowingly cause overdoses because it’s in their interest to keep their clients alive.
From a broader perspective, however, overdoses don’t bother the traffickers as long as more people get addicted and their profits grow, Brown said.
“We’re seeing traffickers lace marijuana with fentanyl. So if it gets to the point where the greed factor kicks in on the domestic drug trafficking side, fentanyl is your go-to because once people start using fentanyl, if they’re smoking marijuana, they’re going to shift to fentanyl. If they’re doing coke once a week and it doesn’t kill them, they’re going to shift to fentanyl,” he said.
Going After the Money
In recent years, Chinese criminal groups have been laundering illegal drug proceeds for the cartels. The scheme works off the demand for dollars among wealthy Chinese who are prohibited from moving more than $50,000 a year overseas.The Chinese launderer collects the money from drug sales in the United States and pays out the same amount, minus a commission, to the cartels in Mexico. The money in the United States is then provided to the wealthy Chinese who already deposited equivalent payments to the launderer’s accounts in China.
This way, the cash doesn’t need to physically leave the United States, which makes the operation more secure than the traditional method of smuggling truckloads of cash across the border, though that still happens.
The method doesn’t use the United States or Mexican banking system, but it does use the Chinese one. The CCP could crack down on such operations, but almost never does. On the contrary, the organized crime groups that facilitate money laundering often work hand-in-glove with the regime, the Select Committee on the CCP report said.
Another method involves a Chinese national in the U.S. who purchases consumer products in China, ships them to Mexico, and is then paid with the drug money in the U.S. Cartels then sell the products to get their money.
The U.S. should sanction or otherwise penalize Chinese banks and banking apps and directly seize assets tied to the money laundering operations or to the cartels, multiple experts suggested. Designating the cartels as terrorists would aid in this effort.
“You get to literally seize all of their money, all other assets, all of their bank accounts,” Brown said.
Maltz hit a similar note.
“We could be a hell of a lot more aggressive on the money laundering of these cartels and the Chinese criminals,” he said.
Treatment and Prevention
Even with impeccable enforcement, it will still be necessary to maintain robust addiction treatment services, the experts said. Without the enforcement, however, much of the treatment will be in vain.“You can help rehab somebody and detox them, then get them back. And when they walk out ... you know who’s outside? The fentanyl dealer and they give them one as soon as they walk out of the rehabilitation center, and they get them hooked again right away,” Brown said.
His point wasn’t just rhetorical; he recounted a recent case in Georgia where a fentanyl dealer was indeed camped right outside a rehab center.
“At least go after the supply first and try to reduce the supply drastically,” he said.
There should also be a mass information campaign, particularly in schools, to inform Americans about the dangers of fentanyl and counterfeit pills, Maltz said. It’s not unusual, for example, for youth to get what they believe is Adderall or Xanax pills off the street, unaware that the pills actually contain fentanyl and may easily contain a fatal dose.
“We’re not even seeing basic stuff being done, like educating the kids, like mandatory education, so kids stay alive,” he said.
