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 Xiaobing Yan, 40, and Jian Zhang, 38, who are both in China and have
not been taken into U.S. custody, were charged with conspiring to
distribute large quantities of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues into
the United States, the Justice Department said.
They were charged in separate indictments unsealed on Monday in
Mississippi and North Dakota.
"For the first time, we have indicted major Chinese fentanyl
traffickers who have been using the Internet to sell fentanyl and
fentanyl analogues to drug traffickers and individual customers in
the United States," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a
statement.
An analogue is a drug that is chemically similar in makeup to
another.
The United States does not have an extradition agreement with China.
Rosenstein said the department has talked to Chinese officials about
the cases and plans to share the government's evidence.
China must do more to crack down on labs making the drugs, he said.
"We believe that most, if not all, fentanyl that is distributed here
in the U.S. and in Canada, originates in China,
he said.
Yan operated at least two chemical plants in China that were capable
of illegally producing "ton quantities" of the drugs, and evaded
detection by systematically altering their chemical makeup, the
Justice Department said.
Investigators identified more than 100 distributors in the alleged
scheme.
Zhang is accused of operating at least four labs in China and
selling to U.S. customers over the internet. He is accused of
sending "many thousands" of packages since January 2013, the
government said.
Five Canadians, two residents of Florida and a resident of New
Jersey were also charged in connection with the alleged conspiracy
involving Zhang, the department said.
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Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said
he did not know anything about this specific case, but added that
the Chinese government took the fentanyl issue seriously and was
continuing to cooperate with the United States to fight the illegal
production and sale of fentanyl.
Earlier on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said his drug czar
nominee, Republican U.S. Representative Tom Marino, had withdrawn
his name from consideration.
Marino was cited in a Washington Post-CBS "60 Minutes" report on
Sunday as spearheading legislation to neuter the Drug Enforcement
Administration's power to crack down on opioid manufacturers who
were flooding the market with the addictive painkillers.
That report, however, involved legal prescription drugs that were
illegally diverted.
The United States is dealing with a major epidemic of opioid
overdoses. In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that
20,000 Americans were killed by fentanyl, a highly addictive
synthetic painkiller.
According to law enforcement officials, the drug is 50 times more
potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting
by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jeffrey
Benkoe and Jacqueline Wong)
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