The other epidemic that came out of Wuhan

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In early February, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents began noticing that the price of methamphetamine and fentanyl - a synthetic opioid - was skyrocketing on the streets of Los Angeles. More than 10,900 kilometers away, in central China, the city of Wuhan had already had the biggest sanitary lock ever seen for two weeks. The coronavirus had confined its 11 million inhabitants and closed all shops and factories. Activity in the laboratories where much of the chemical precursors to make methamphetamine and, above all, fentanyl that ends up on the streets of Los Angeles, was also paralyzed.

The main source of the fentanyl epidemic - 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more than morphine - which is overdosing on around 30,000 Americans each year, is found in Chinese legal firms that prepare the main ingredients. And in Wuhan are many of the world's suppliers of the chemicals used to make these drugs. Although the route is not direct to the United States. The main buyers of the chemicals to cook this narcotic are the Mexican cartels , which in recent years have embraced fentanyl as one of its star products because it is cheaper and easier to produce than other organic substances such as cocaine or heroin.

According to the US Department of Justice, it costs about $ 32,000 to make a kilo of this opioid. With this amount they can produce a million doses that are sold on the street for $ 20 each. The first to see the fruitful business was the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Chapo Guzmán. Later, his son, Ovidio Guzmán, followed in his father's wake, becoming one of the main distributors of fentanyl in the United States. According to DEA reports, prior to 2017 the opioid was shipped directly from China to the United States. But both governments turned off the tap and the Mexican drug lords took advantage of this, importing chemical precursors from the Asian country and making fentanyl in their own laboratories.

In recent years, what comes out of Wuhan ends up in clandestine laboratories in the Mexican cities of Jalisto and Sinaloa . When the final product - fentanyl in pills, pills or powder - is ready, the Mexican drug traffickers sneak it through the points of a border of more than 3,000 kilometers with the United States in small shipments inside food cans or in toy bags .

But something has changed in the business since the pandemic started. The supply chain of both fentanyl - clinically used as a pain reliever and patch anesthetic for people with cancer - and methamphetamine was cut short by blockages. For months, the chemical precursors that drug traffickers imported from China have not been available. This has reduced the amount of product handled by Mexican cartels and made prices in the backyards of the United States more expensive. Although according to Terry Cole, a former DEA agent, the cartels " are beginning to manufacture the ingredients for these drugs , eliminating their dependence on Chinese suppliers." For this they would have chemistry professors from universities throughout Mexico, whom they hire to supervise daily production.

In April, Louise Shelley, director of the Center for Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption at George Mason University (Virginia, USA), who has spent years monitoring Chinese websites that sell ingredients to make fentanyl, explained that large amounts of these components They can be traced to a single state-subsidized company in Wuhan City, which closed after the coronavirus outbreak earlier in the year.

In September 2019, writer and journalist Ben Westhoff published a book, 'Fentanyl, Inc', detailing how chemicals leaving China - specifically Wuhan - are creating the deadliest wave of the opioid epidemic. His research began at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, at a chemical precursor company called Yuancheng.

"Posing as a potential client, I saw sales stands manned by hundreds of joyful college graduates, sending emoticon-laden messages from their cubicles to clients located primarily in Mexico. They told me they would be happy to sell me unscheduled fentanyl precursors. or that they were illegal in China, and they showed me fake packaging used to ship the precursors overseas, including dog food wrappers and banana snacks, to more easily avoid customs inspections, "Westhoff explains.

Yuncheng was founded in 2001, has branches in various cities in China and two factories, one in Shenzhen and one in Wuhan. In the second, its headquarters are located in the Wuchang District, in an eight-story building where it shares space with a hotel. The company offers more than 10,000 different compounds, from food additives, pharmaceuticals, collagen, pesticides, veterinary products, anabolic steroids, and chemical precursors used to synthesize drugs. Although the company claims it stopped selling NPP and 4-ANPP, the most common precursors to making fentanyl, because "they are illegal in China." In 2018, a law that prohibited the sale of these two products came into force in the Asian giant, although they can still be found in many online points of sale .

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times , Logan Pauley, an analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, a Washington-based research organization, explained that "announced prices in China for fentanyl precursors, methamphetamine and cutting agents have increased between 25% and 400% since the end of February. "

Last week, the United States announced sanctions against four people and a China-based company for its alleged involvement in "international drug trafficking operations," specifically fentanyl. Among the names is Fujing Zheng, who was declared in August 2019 as an "international drug dealer" by the US Treasury Department. Fujing is the head of Qinsheng Pharmaceutical Co, a seemingly legal Shanghai-based company that has been accused of illegally exporting fentanyl worldwide.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• China
• U.S
• Wuhan

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