The three separate indictments unsealed in federal court in New York represent the first prosecutions to charge China-based chemical companies and Chinese nationals with illegally selling the chemicals used to make fentanyl, which has been blamed for a deadly overdose crisis.
“When I announced in April that the Justice Department had taken significant enforcement actions against the Sinaloa Cartel, I promised that the Justice Department would never forget the victims of the fentanyl epidemic,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release. An indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court charges the China-based chemical company Hubei Amarvel Biotech Co. as well as three company executives with fentanyl trafficking, precursor chemical importation and money laundering.
Two of the Amarvel Biotech executives were arrested earlier this month and appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Honolulu. They will be brought to New York to appear in Manhattan federal court. The third has not been arrested.