Indictment claims Amarvel Biotech’s Exec. and Manager Were Arrested and Transported to the United States After Shipping More Than 200 Kilograms of Precursors for Fentanyl and Fentanyl Analogues from China to US
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Merrick B. Garland, the Attorney General of the United States, Lisa O. Monaco, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, and Anne Milgram, the Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), announced today the unsealing of an Indictment charging the Chinese chemical company HUBEI AMARVEL BIOTECH CO., LTD., a/k/a “AmarvelBio,” (“AMARVEL BIOTECH”) as well as its executives and employees QINGZHOU WANG, a/k/a “Bruce” (“WANG”), YIYI CHEN, a/k/a “Chiron” (“CHEN”), and FNU LNU, a/k/a “Er Yang,” a/k/a “Anita” (“YANG”), with fentanyl trafficking, precursor chemical importation, and money laundering offenses. WANG and CHEN, both nationals of China, were expelled from Fiji on June 8, 2023, arrested by the DEA, and presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Wes Reber Porter in Honolulu federal court on June 9, 2023. WANG and CHEN were ordered detained in Honolulu and will appear in Manhattan federal court following their arrival in the Southern District of New York. YANG, also a national of China, is at large. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “The indictment unsealed today in the Southern District of New York is the next step in our fight against fentanyl. Today, we target the very beginning of the fentanyl supply chain: the Chinese manufacturers of the raw chemicals used to make fentanyl and its analogues. We’ve charged a Chinese precursor chemical company. And that’s not all. We’ve charged and arrested some of the individuals who work at the company. That includes a corporate executive and a marketing manager. They’re in American handcuffs. And they’re going to face justice in an American courtroom.”
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said: “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. I also promised that we would never stop working to hold accountable those who bear responsibility for it. That includes not only going after the leaders of the Cartels, their drug and gun traffickers, their money launderers, security forces, and clandestine lab operators. It also includes stopping the Chinese chemical companies that are supplying the cartels with the building blocks they need to manufacture deadly fentanyl.”
Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said: “Today’s announcement is a down payment on our pledge to use every tool in the government’s arsenal, in every corner of the globe, to protect American communities. The Justice Department will not rest or relent in investigating and prosecuting every link of the fentanyl supply chain, including the PRC companies and executives who produce and export vast quantities of the precursor chemicals the drug cartels need to peddle their poison. There can be no safe haven.”
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said: “Today’s announcement is a considerable step forward in our unrelenting fight against fentanyl, targeting the threat where it starts. These companies and individuals are alleged to have knowingly supplied drug traffickers, in the United States and Mexico, with the ingredients and scientific know-how needed to make fentanyl – a drug that continues to devastate families and communities across the United States, killing Americans from all walks of life. The fentanyl supply chain begins in China, but tragically, it ends here. Targeting entire criminal drug networks, from the source of supply to the last mile of distribution, is critical to saving American lives. DEA will not stop until this crisis ends.”
According to the allegations contained in the Indictment and other court filings:[1]
AMARVEL BIOTECH is a chemical manufacturer based in the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, China, that has exported vast quantities of the precursor chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl and its analogues. A synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin, fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49. Fentanyl analogues, similar in chemical makeup and effect to fentanyl, can be even more potent and lethal than fentanyl. Fentanyl and its analogues have devastated communities across the United States and are fueling the ongoing opioid epidemic, which killed at least 105,263 Americans between February 2022 and January 2023 alone.
AMARVEL BIOTECH has openly advertised online its shipment of fentanyl precursor chemicals to the United States and to Mexico, where drug cartels operate clandestine laboratories, synthesize finished fentanyl at scale, and distribute the deadly fentanyl into and throughout the United States. Through its website and a host of other storefront sites, AMARVEL BIOTECH has targeted precursor chemical customers in Mexico, including by advertising fentanyl precursors as a “Mexico hot sale”; guaranteeing “100% stealth shipping” abroad; and posting to its websites documentation of AMARVEL BIOTECH shipping chemicals to Culiacan, the home city of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the dominant drug trafficking organizations in the Western Hemisphere and which is largely responsible for the massive influx of fentanyl into the United States in recent years.
AMARVEL BIOTECH has also endeavored to thwart law enforcement interdiction of its precursor chemical shipments. AMARVEL BIOTECH has advertised, for example, the company’s ability to use deceptive packaging — such as packaging indicating the contents are dog food, nuts, or motor oil — to ensure “safe” delivery to the United States and Mexico.
Over the past eight months, during the course of an undercover investigation by the DEA, AMARVEL BIOTECH and its principal executive, WANG, its marketing manager, CHEN, and its sales representative, YANG, shipped more than 200 kilograms from China to the United States of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl and its analogues. AMARVEL BIOTECH, WANG, CHEN, and YANG shipped the precursors to the United States intending that the chemicals would be used to produce fentanyl and its analogues in New York, and they agreed to continue supplying multi-ton shipments of fentanyl precursors despite being told that Americans had died after consuming fentanyl made from the chemicals that the defendants had sold.
For example, on or about November 17, 2022, a DEA confidential source (“CS-1”) wrote to YANG using an encrypted messaging application, “You know I making fentanyl,” and “Is not safe.” YANG replied, “i know.” On or about December 1, 2022, YANG wrote to CS-1, promising that CS-1 would be “happy with our product” and noting that CS-1 would “be able to synthesize fentanyl.” In exchange for payment in cryptocurrency, AMARVEL BIOTECH thereafter shipped from China to New York approximately 999.7 grams of the fentanyl precursor 1-boc-4-AP, approximately 1,002.6 grams of the fentanyl precursor 1-boc-4-piperidone, and approximately 893.6 grams of the methamphetamine precursor methylamine.
In or about March 2023, WANG and CHEN met in person with an individual whom CS-1 represented was CS-1’s boss but was in fact another DEA confidential source (“CS-2”). During the meeting, WANG and CHEN discussed AMARVEL BIOTECH’s ability to supply ton-quantities of fentanyl precursors to New York for CS-1 and CS-2’s fentanyl manufacturing operation. After CS-2 stated that CS-2 wanted a different formula for manufacturing fentanyl and that several of CS-2’s American customers had purportedly died, WANG and CHEN advised they had “a lot of customers in America and Mexico” who could provide technical assistance with fentanyl production.
After the March 2023 meeting, AMARVEL BIOTECH, WANG, CHEN, and YANG agreed to sell CS-1 and CS-2 approximately 210 kilograms of fentanyl precursors in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency. During an April 10, 2023, video call with WANG and CHEN, CS-2 stated that the approximately 210 kilograms of fentanyl precursors would be used to manufacture approximately 50 to 55 kilograms of fentanyl — an amount that could contain approximately 25 million deadly doses.
In or about May 2023, AMARVEL BIOTECH, WANG, CHEN, and YANG sent to the United States the shipment ordered by CS-1 and CS-2. On or about May 5, 2023, the DEA retrieved the precursor shipment from a warehouse near Los Angeles, California. Lab testing confirmed the presence of a precursor chemical for a fentanyl analogue. In an encrypted messaging group chat with CS-1, CS-2, WANG, and CHEN, YANG explained that “New York, the United States, has been strict in checking the precursors of the ‘final product’ some time ago, so for the sake of safety, this time it is sent to California.”
In or about June 2023, WANG and CHEN met again with CS-2. During the meeting, WANG and CHEN discussed with CS-2 a multi-ton order of fentanyl precursor chemicals. WANG and CHEN also discussed the need to take additional measures to protect themselves from detection and interdiction of their shipments “because recently American government . . . seized some Mexican group and they followed the routes to China,” where the U.S. Government found “our competitor in China” — an apparent reference to fentanyl-related charges filed in the Southern District of New York and announced in April 2023 against, among others, leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel and certain China-based precursor chemical company executives.[2]
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A table containing the charges and minimum and maximum potential penalties for AMARVEL BIOTECH, a company in China; WANG, 35, of China; CHEN, 31, of China; and YANG, of China, is set forth below. The minimum and maximum potential penalties are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by a judge.
