https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/chinese-company-helping-fuel-opioid-epidemic/596254/ (Chap 17, Fetanyl, Inc., Ben Westhoff, 2019)
Experts agree that the precursors are key to the cartels’ operations. “So long as the cartels can obtain the necessary chemicals, they will be able to synthesize the drugs that permit them to bribe officials, buy weapons and pay their gunmen,” wrote Scott Stewart on the website Stratfor. And, unlike fentanyl analogues, all of which China banned in the spring of 2019, most fentanyl precursors remain perfectly legal in China.
I clearly needed to better understand the Chinese precursor trade. It had taken only a few keystrokes to find operations that were selling these chemicals openly on the Internet. But as I continued digging I realized that—unlike the NPS sold by Chemsky and others—the fentanyl precursors being sold to the cartels and others didn’t seem to come from small to medium-size companies scattered around China.
The bulk of them seemed to come from a single corporation.
Westhoff, Ben. Fentanyl, Inc. (Kindle location 3024-3031/6750). Grove Atlantic. 22019, Kindle edition.
