It’s Incredibly Easy To Buy Ingredients For Fentanyl From China: REPORT

The ingredients to make fentanyl are incredibly easy to purchase from China and ship to North America, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Reuters spent the past year obtaining ingredients that chemists advised them are precursors to fentanyl, as well as equipment to make pills, in order to demonstrate how easy it is to procure fentanyl ingredients with only an internet connection, according to its report. Out of the $3,600 of mostly Bitcoin spent on acquiring the chemicals, Reuters estimated the total product created from the ingredients holds an estimated street value of $3 million.

Twelve of the fourteen orders that arrived contained fentanyl precursors, with the last two being fakes — one containing sugar and the other lidocaine, a popular anesthetic, chemists told Reuters. The packages were disguised as mundane items to evade authorities, such as “adapter,” “computer accessories,” and “door knob.”

Reuters reporters used eight suppliers, with seven of them being based in China, with some under indictments from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The process involved going on both the dark web and regular websites that advertised the ingredients, with shoppers usually communicating over secure messaging such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp, according to the outlet.

One such company, Hubei Amarvel Biotech, was indicted by the DOJ in 2023 along with three Chinese nationals, according to court documents. The indictment alleges that Amarvel knowingly attempted to deceive law enforcement by mislabeling shipments containing fentanyl precursors to the U.S.

“What we sell is completely legal in China, but the United States always uses this matter to criticize US