The US has announced sanctions and indictments against 14 Chinese and Canadian firms for importing fentanyl, one of the most sweeping actions yet to target trafficking of the powerful synthetic opiate. Officials from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies announced the actions on Tuesday. The indictments and sanctions target what officials described as a “major China-based syndicate” that sold fentanyl to drug dealers and international cartels, the Associated Press reported. The majority of those indicted are based in China but some are based…
Tag: Opioids crisis
Drug agency chief calls on China and Mexico to help stem US fentanyl crisis
Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Anne Milgram has called for further cooperation from China and Mexico in the fight against the US’s fentanyl crisis. In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on Sunday, Milgram said that despite the DEA standing “ready to work with anyone who will work with us”, the US has “not had the cooperation that we want to have” from China, adding that the Mexican government also “needs to do more”. With the US battling a worsening fentanyl crisis, since at least 2019 the…
The China-Mexico fentanyl pipeline: increasingly sophisticated and deadly
For a few days in April, news sites across Latin America were running Instagram photos of a glamorous blond woman enjoying trips around the world. There were pictures of Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea, 32, posing in a blue dress and Yves Saint Laurent handbag outside San Miguel de Allende, ice skating in a miniskirt in Central Park and laughing in the Forbidden City. The social media images were then followed by more recent photos: Rubio, in a sweatshirt and jeans, flanked by officers from the national civil police of Guatemala,…
US sanctions Chinese drugmakers amid addiction epidemic
The US has imposed sanctions on Chinese painkiller makers – including one man described as the biggest producer of anabolic steroids in the world – as it vowed to step up action to curb the addiction epidemic that killed a record 100,000 Americans last year. With people who are dealing with addiction increasingly turning to cheaper pills bought online from abroad, Joe Biden signed an executive order that makes it easier for the US to target foreign drug traffickers. The actions “will help disrupt the global supply chain and the…