China gives suspended death sentence to fentanyl smuggler in joint US probe
07 November, 2019
A Chinese court on Thursday (Nov 7) jailed nine people, one with a suspended death sentence, for smuggling fentanyl into the United States, saying this was the first such case the two countries had worked together on.
China has faced US criticism for not doing enough to prevent the flow of fentanyl into the United States, and the issue has become another irritant in ties, already strained by a bruising trade war the two are now working to end.
The announcement of the successful action against the smugglers comes as the two countries are expected to sign an interim trade deal.
Fentanyl is a highly addictive synthetic opioid, 50 times more potent than heroin.
It is often used to make counterfeit narcotics because of its relatively cheap price and it has played an increasingly central role in an opioid crisis in the United States.
China's narcotics bureau discovered in 2017 a criminal ring based in Shanghai and eastern Jiangsu province and seized 11.9kg of fentanyl, acting on a tip-off from US border authorities, according to the court.
"Lured by high profit and huge demand from overseas buyers," three people surnamed Wang, Liu and Jiang trafficked fentanyl as well as alprazolam, a prescription anxiety drug also known as Xanax, to US buyers, the court said.
Yu Haibin, a senior official with China's National Narcotics Control Commission, told reporters in the northern city of Xingtai where the court case was heard, that Chinese and US law enforcement had worked together to break up the ring.
A man surnamed Liu was given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve - which in practice is normally commuted to life in jail - and two got life sentences, Yu said.
The rest were given prison terms of six months or longer.
More than 28,000 synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths, mostly from fentanyl-related substances, were recorded in the United States in 2017, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
US drug enforcement has pointed to China as the source of fentanyl and its related supplies. China denies that most of the illicit fentanyl entering the United States originates in China, and says the United States must do more to reduce demand.
Yu said that the issue of fentanyl was not something any one country could resolve.
"If illegal demand cannot be effectively reduced, it is very difficult to fundamentally tackle the fentanyl issue."
In August, US President Donald Trump accused Chinese President Xi Jinping of not fulfilling a promise to crack down on fentanyl and its analogues.
Yu said China was willing to work with US law enforcement authorities and all other international colleagues to fight narcotics and "continue to contribute China's wisdom and power for the global management of narcotics".
Source: