#US sanctions Chinese fentanyl ‘kingpin’ for mailing lethal drug

The Trump administration on Tuesday unveiled sanctions against an alleged Chinese fentanyl distributor deemed “one of the most significant drug traffickers in the world.”

Zhang Taotao is accused of shipping large amounts of the powerful synthetic opioid to the US. Fentanyl is less expensive than heroin and prescription painkillers, but can kill in very small doses.

Fentanyl sourced largely from labs in China has driven a spike in US drug overdose deaths. More than 31,000 Americans died after taking synthetic opioids in 2018, continuing a five-year surge.

“Zhang has shipped synthetic opioids to the United States via multiple individuals and freight-forwarding services and used false labelling to disguise parcel contents and avoid seizure by authorities,” the State Department said in a statement. “Once a package is received in the United States, U.S.-based distributors press fentanyl into counterfeit pharmaceutical pills for further distribution and domestic consumption.”

The Treasury Department will apply sanctions against Zhang and Hong Kong-based Allyrise Technology Group Co. under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.

“The United States continues to seek cooperation with [China] to tackle this supply chain threat and calls on the [Chinese] government to accelerate efforts to regulate its chemical industry and reduce the diversion of precursors into the international black market,” the State Department said.

The move follows a nosedive in US-China relations over a range of issues, including China’s Communist government concealing early data on COVID-19 before the virus spread abroad, killing 178,000 Americans and leaving millions jobless.

The US recently sanctioned Chinese officials for eliminating political autonomy in Hong Kong and for human rights abuses against the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority.

President Trump often said early in his term that he enjoyed a close relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and that Xi assured him that illegal fentanyl exporters would face execution after being tolerated for years.

Trump has given varying remarks on whether he’s satisfied with Xi’s job halting the drug.

“Fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year. President Xi said this would stop – it didn’t,” Trump tweeted in August 2019. But in February — before the COVID-19 pandemic and shortly after signing a “phase one” trade deal with China — Trump said that “fentanyl is a huge problem. It’s almost, at this moment, 100 percent made in China. And they are starting to enforce it on our behalf.”