China-Based Chemical Manufacturing Companies Charged, Executives Arrested in Fentanyl Manufacturing

“Today’s announcement is a considerable step forward in our unrelenting fight against fentanyl, targeting the threat where it starts,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “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. 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.”

Southern District of New YorkAn indictment was unsealed in the Southern District of New York charging the China-based chemical company Hubei Amarvel Biotech Co. Ltd., aka AmarvelBio, (Amarvel Biotech), as well as its executives and employees Qingzhou Wang, 35, aka Bruce (Wang); Yiyi Chen, 31, aka Chiron (Chen); and Fnu Lnu, aka Er Yang and 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, arrested by the DEA, and presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Wes Reber Porter in Honolulu federal court on June 9. 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 indictment unsealed today in the Southern District of New York is the next step in our fight against fentanyl,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “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.”

According to the allegations contained in the indictment and other court filings, 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.

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, Mexico, 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 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 Nov. 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 Dec. 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 March 2023, 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 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, as noted above, 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, the DEA retrieved the precursor shipment from a warehouse near Los Angeles. 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.