FENTANYL’S DEADLY PATH
How the dangerous drug gets from China to America
FENTANYL and other synthetic opiates were responsible for more than 71,000 fatal overdoses in the United States during 2021, according to the California Department of Health. There is good reason for that grim statistic: Fentanyl, which often gets mixed into heroin or cocaine, not to mention bootlegged Oxycontin and Xanax pills, is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine. It’s also cheaper to produce than either of those drugs.
In 2022, a record-setting 14,700 pounds of fentanyl shipments was seized by US Customs and Border Protection agents; this year, there’s already been 12,500 pounds snagged. But that’s still just a fraction of what enters the US.
Here’s how it gets from the other side of the world to America’s main streets.
1 CHINA TO WEST COAST OF MEXICO
Chemists in Chinese laboratories produce powdered chemicals, such as 4-Piperidone, known as “precursors” that serve as fentanyl’s building blocks.
According to Ben Westhoff, author of “Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic,” the Chinese labs maintain veneers of legitimacy and stay within China’s laws. But the bosses know that the chemicals are illicit elsewhere. “They showed me the fake packaging,” Westhoff, who toured labs in Wuhan, told The Post. “They put the precursors into boxes that look like they contain dog food and ship them to Mexico, usually by sea.”
Precursors arriving by boat come in on the western coast of Mexico, where cartels including Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation battle to control the ports. “There is so much corruption,” said Westhoff. “A couple hundred dollars may be enough to make authorities look the other way as chemicals are unloaded and shipped to the cartelcontrolled labs.” Approximate value per kilogram: $200
2 NORTHERN MEXICO
“The labs tend to be in the north,” Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) told The Post. “That puts them closer to the US border.” But Sam Quinones, author of “The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth,” told The Post: “’Lab’ is a glorified word for what goes on in Mexico. It’s more like a backyard barbecue. You need some training, but this is not the Rubik’s cube of chemistry.”
Brewing the precursor powder in pots over open flames outdoors, cooks wear masks and stand downwind of the operations so as not to breathe in fumes. Some work in cattle fields, hidden by the cows. The drugs get diluted, mixed with other chemicals and kept as a powder or pressed into pills that resemble pharmaceuticals or candy pellets.
Approximate value per kilogram: $3,000
to $5,000 (depending on purity)
3 CROSSING THE BORDER
Drug dealers stash their wares in trucks, often mixed in with produce or other products, heading for hubs across the US — including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Atlanta and New York.
“Sometimes people don’t even know they are smuggling. Let’s say someone routinely commutes across the border to work. The cartel will drill a small hole near where the trunk latch will be, pop the trunk and stash drugs in the trunk. Then, when the person is at
4 URBAN HUBS IN AMERICA
Once over the border, the idea is to quickly reach a drop-off spot. Before drugs enter New York, for example, there is often a stop near a Hudson River crossing such as the George Washington Bridge.
In that instance, Bridget Brennan, who heads the city’s Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, told The Post, the trucker will rendezvous with a courier in a nondescript vehicle. “A big load, maybe 20 kilograms, gets transferred to a car. A driver brings it into the city.”
Approximate value per kilogram: $35,000 work, someone will retrieve the drugs from the car,” said Westhoff. Traffic makes it easier to blend in. “We have 200,000 border crossings per day,” said Rep. Trone. “Often Americans drive the vehicles and they are less likely to get stopped.”
Approximate value per kilogram: $20,000
5 DRUG MILLS
“Usually the mills are situated in apartments in nondescript areas; you don’t want it to be around lot of criminal activity,” said Brennan, adding that, in the five boroughs, neighborhoods near the Bronx Zoo are popular. “Air conditioning runs all the time to filter the air. Shades are pulled down.”
As many as 12 packagers earn around $800 each per day, putting in 12-hour shifts to package the drugs after cutting them further with other substances.
“One thing they recently began using is Xylazine, an animal tranquilizer,” said Brennan, adding that it depresses breathing and is not responsive to Narcan (which can revive people from opioid overdoses). “Small scoops are used to pack the drugs into glassine envelopes. A crew of 12 can do 100,000 glassines in 24 hours.” The glassines usually contain less than 2 milligrams or less of fentanyl. According to the DEA, two milligrams of fentanyl constitutes a lethal dose. Each milligram is comparable, sizewise, to 10 to 20 grains of salt.
Approximate value per kilogram: $300,000
6 FROM THE STREETS
TO THE USER Wholesalers might drive to a mill to pick-up glassine-enveloped goods, meet at a halfway point or even get it delivered.
“The further you drive, the more susceptible you are to getting caught,” said Nicholas Mauro, bureau chief of narcotics, firearms and gangs for the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office. “They hide the drugs in consoles of their cars, book bags or their underwear.”
Distributed to street dealers who pay, on average nationally, around $8 per glassine, the drugs now complete their deadly path, reaching users.
Grouped into packs of 10 (known as bundles), 50 (bricks) or 100 (sleeves) and wrapped in paper — often pages from glossy magazines — each glassine wholesales for $3 to $5, based on purity.
Some dealers get into marketing. “We had one guy selling out of a McDonald’s,” said Brennan. “His glassines were stamped with the golden arches.”
“[Addicts] buy packs of 10 if they can,” Raymond Tierney, district attorney in Suffolk County, told The Post.
Approximate value per kilogram: $1 million