A decade into America’s deadly fentanyl crisis, the supply chain fueling the narcotic’s production has grown into a ruthlessly efficient global trade, but one that’s almost a complete black box. Reuters penetrated this clandestine industry to show how astonishingly cheap and easy it is for drug cartels to obtain fentanyl-making chemicals – by buying and testing the chemicals itself.
The resulting series, ‘Fentanyl Express,’ exposes how and why the U.S. government has failed to stem the flow of these chemicals, despite major diplomatic and law-enforcement pushes by the Biden and first Trump administrations. It also shows how Washington’s own trade policies turned the United States into a major transshipment hub for Chinese fentanyl chemicals bound for Mexico, stoking an overdose death toll approaching 450,000 American lives.
This reporting, by a team of journalists in the U.S., Mexico and China, involved numerous risks. Reporters traveled to cartel-controlled areas of Mexico to meet chemical supply chiefs, fentanyl “cooks” and a hitman; braved Chinese government surveillance; and had one of their cellphones targeted in a spyware attack. Most audacious, however, was their technique for uncovering how the trade works: Reuters became the first news organization to purchase fentanyl’s essential ingredients, or “precursors.”
Three reporters using burner phones and Bitcoin managed to buy 6.6 kilos of precursors and pill-making equipment online from Chinese sellers who openly market to the illegal drugs trade. Most of the goods arrived in Mexico and the U.S. as seamlessly as any mail-order package. Some precursors had instructions on how to prepare them for making fentanyl. In all, we spent $3,600 on materials capable of producing 3 million fentanyl pills. Street value: at least $3 million.
To make the buys, reporters had to navigate legal obstacles in China, Mexico and the U.S., working for months with attorneys in all three countries to ensure compliance with the law.
The purchases revealed glaring holes in U.S. efforts to stop Chinese sellers: Three of the outfits that supplied us had been indicted by U.S. authorities yet were still peddling the chemicals.
