Over the past four months in Mexico fell sharply profits of drug cartels has escalated the war of criminal gangs, and in the US soared the street price for synthetic drugs. Why? Due to coronavirus and quarantine in Wuhan. As it turned out, a lot of love drug Chinese city began to use long before famous throughout the world for its market of wild animals and biological laboratories of the Institute of Virology.Remote work nevozmojnoe coronavirus negatively affected many types of businesses. Among the most affected were the areas associated with constant movement of people and goods, such as tourism and catering. And the drug business.USA is the most attractive market for drug dealers: the big country, high purchasing power of consumers. In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs”. For nearly half a century, despite the state has spent hundreds of billions of dollars, a clear advantage in this war is almost always on the side of drugs. Steadily increased the number of drug addicts, market turnover, the profits of criminals.The situation changed dramatically in the current year. Coronavirus managed to do what not in forces was to make American intelligence agencies, is to reduce the supply of drugs on the American market. First synthetic opioids. Including the most dangerous and deadly drug of our day — fentanyl.Death on the third vilniuje about 30 years in the USA opioid epidemic is raging. The centers for control and prevention of diseases (CDC) distinguish three waves. The first began in the 1990-ies, when the doctors are influenced by pharmaceutical companies have become in a huge, continually increasing quantities to prescribe opioid analgesics for the relief of acute and chronic pain. Contrary to what is claimed is, these drugs were not safe and caused addiction. The growing availability of these medicines has led to an increase in the number of the dependent who used them for non-medical purposes. Most popular the drug of the first wave used a semi-synthetic opioid, oxycodone, sold under the trade name oxycontin (OxyContin). The second wave of the epidemic started around 2010. Its distinguishing features were the rise in popularity of heroin and the increasing number of overdose deaths. This was due to the increase in the supply of the drug on the market at lower prices.The lethal dose of fentanyl and 2 milligrams. The fentanyl analogs may have an even greater effect. The most powerful of them — carfentanil is 10 thousand times stronger than morphine.In 2011 and 2012, the number of deaths in the United States from an overdose of fentanyl was stable — about 1.6 million people a year. In 2013 slightly increased — up to 1919. In 2014 more than doubled to 4223. Then the doubling continued: 8251 death in 2015, 335 18 — in 2016. In 2016-m fentanyl has overtaken heroin, taking alopochen first place among drug overdose where Americans are dying most often. The statistics for 2017 recorded death from synthetic opioids excluding methadone. In most cases we are talking about fontanile, almost all of the rest of its derivatives. Such deaths in 2017 was 28 869, in 2018 — 31 355.The increase in the number of deaths is easy to explain. Often drug dealers mix fentanyl in the cocaine or heroin, what the consumer may know or may not know. Because of the greater potency of fentanyl, the chances of a fatal overdose increase dramatically.Why mix? It is profitable. Fentanyl is cheaper and easier to produce than heroin and cocaine. If the procurement of wholesale heroin from the subsequent sale of retail drug dealers in the USA get a profit of $4 for every dollar invested, the kg fentanyl, bought in China for $3.8 thousand, in the USA you can earn $30 million for drug addicts And huge plus of this drug is its low price.With Yangtze issuance of netphoto: China Daily / Reuters”Beyond the gates of the residential complex Oak Bay is a crazy construction site, tearing apart the city of Wuhan in Central China, a metropolis with a population of 11 million people seeking to keep up with Beijing and Shanghai. Sonic assault jackhammers and cement stops the walls of the residential complex. Inside you will find a blooming oasis with manicured lawns and winding paths of red brick, which the residents go out in the morning to do tai Chi on the shore of the Yangtze river.In one of the 5,000 apartments on the 20th floor, living Yan Xiaobing, shorn under the hedgehog distributor of chemicals. His wife, Hu Qi directs the courses of the English language. In social networks you can see pictures of the couple with two small children on the beach under the blue sky on the background of the European and Japanese sites”.This is an excerpt from the investigations of journalists by Bloomberg, published in may 2018. Two years ago, reporters had to explain to the reader what kind of city — Wuhan — and where it is.Read delegorguei interested in this person after September 2017, the state court of Mississippi confirmed the indictment against Yan Sabina (aka Steven Yang, he’s William Zhou, the company 9W Technology), the accused that he along with his accomplices created an underground Empire by producing and selling 22 types of synthetic drugs, including fentanyl and its derivatives, synthetic cannabinoids and methylone. In the period from 2010 to 2016 drugs exported to the United States, where they traded more than 100 distributors, as well as more than 20 countries (including Russia).When Bloomberg found Yang Shaobin in Wuhan, he told them: “It’s terrible. Investigation of sasl�� somewhere”. He also said that the US charges in the address first learned of their emails that were unaware that the chemicals that he was selling prohibited in the United States, and that Chinese law enforcement authorities did not show him any claims.Photo: U. S. Department of Theaugust after arraignment Yan Sabino in USA to trade with fentanyl was charged another resident of the PRC, Zhang Jian. He was arrested and sentenced his co-conspirators from Canada and the United States. Because four people who bought fentanyl Zhang Jian, died, he was threatened with life imprisonment and a $12.5 million fine.But threatened to jail the Chinese drug lords only if they appeared before the American court. In December 2017, Deputy Director of the Chinese narcotics Haibin Yu in an interview with Vice News said that the arrest of the suspects and their extradition to the US will not. “China there is no compelling evidence that they violated the laws of China. Our American colleagues also failed to provide such evidence,” he said.In 2019, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions against several individuals and legal entities of China, accused of trafficking in fentanyl and its derivatives.Chinese laws these persons may indeed not violated.Production ahead of takapoto: Johannes Eisele / AFPВ ventanillas the first years of the epidemic the drug was taken from China to USA without problems. Any American is a drug addict or a drug dealer could find online ads many Chinese companies selling fentanyl. Then choose any of them, contact via messenger with the Manager of the company (all managers say in English) and order the drug with delivery by Express mail. Chinese sales went to meet the client and on the customs Declaration instead of the name lethal drug wrote some other harmless, not to attract attention. Chinese laws do not forbid the free sale and export of many other synthetic drugs.The United States tried at the highest level to persuade China to make fentanyl is a controlled substance. Chinese authorities went forward, but slowly and reluctantly. October 1, 2015, China recognized controlled substances 116 new synthetic drugs (including 39 already banned at that time in Russia, the EU and the U.S. synthetic cannabinoids, which were active ingredients of the so-called Smoking mixtures). Among the prohibited substances got and fentanyl. Chinese manufacturers of the drug rebuilt, stopping his release and immediately started to produce a new drug with a modified chemical structure but similar effect — furanyl-fentanyl. It took some time before it was banned in the United States. After his ban in October 2016, Chinese manufacturers ��have pereklyuchenii to release a new analogue of carfentanil. The drug was soon banned in the U.S., but remains legal in China. On the U.S. black market emerged and other derivatives of the drug, legally manufactured in China: acryl-fentanyl, was Valerie-fentanyl.Fentanyl for medical purposes is legal in Russia FSUE “State research Institute of organic chemistry and technology”. Derivatives of fentanyl, known as the “white Chinese”, also manufactured in Russia in clandestine labs and imported by contraband from China.They were prohibited from 1 March 2017. Producers had to change the formula. In November 2017, the President of the United States Donald trump agreed with President XI Jinping on further action to be taken by China to counter export of fentanyl in the United States.May 1, 2019, the Chinese government announced the addition to the lists of controlled drugs all substances containing fentanyl and its analogues, including those not yet created.However ventanilla epidemic in the United States continued. 23 Aug 2019 Donald trump published an angry tweet: “Fentanyl is killing 100,000 Americans a year. President XI said stop it — and did!.. I order all companies providing postal and courier services, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the U.S. Post office, to TRACK down AND REFUSE the DELIVERY… all postage with fentanyl from China (and from any other place!)”.China has also accused that after the Chinese manufacturers have ceased direct sales in the US, drugs have gone through Mexico. In response, the Deputy Director of the Chinese narcotics Liu Yuetszin at a press conference in Beijing said: “the Police of three countries were not found and did not disclose any such case. On what basis do some U.S. policy make such conclusions? They sit at home and suck it all out of your finger.”He also noticed that the number of deaths from fentanyl in the U.S., and made this fact the conclusion that the “tweets of the President of trump that fentanyl is mainly supplied from China are not true”.Soon in Xingtai (Hebei province) held show trial traders fentanyl, arrested on a tip from the United States. The sentence was handed down on 7 November 2019. The head of the gang was sentenced to death with a reprieve of two years, two members to life imprisonment, six more — to various terms of imprisonment.After sentencing Deputy Director of the Chinese drug control Yu Haibin said at a press conference that according to U.S. statistics in the period from October 2018 to March 2019 from 536,8 kg fentanyl, confiscated by the authorities at the borders, only 5,87 kg, that is slightly more than 1%, were shipped from China.High-tech ��of reparativoe: facebook.com/ben.westhoffВ 2018 in Wuhan visited the American investigative journalist Ben Westhoff, author of “Fentanyl, Inc. How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic”. In July 2019, he made a report to the Commission on monitoring economic issues and security issues in relations between the US and China of Congress. And here is what he said.Under the guise of a potential buyer, Mr. Westhoff visited the headquarters of the company “Yancheng”. The company was founded in 2001, it employs about 700 people, its offices are all over China. Most of the staff — sales managers who speak English. “Yangcheng” produces and sells various chemical compounds, both firms and individuals. Her price list is more than 10 thousand items, including nutritional supplements, anabolic steroids, medicines, pesticides. The list includes two precursor for the production of fentanyl. The company has two factories in Wuhan and Shenzhen.Photo: anabolicsteroidssupplements.song 2011, “Yangcheng” received the status of high-tech enterprises. From 2012 to 2014, she participated in the state program “Torch” (the program of development of the technology industry). The company also participated in the state program “spark” (aimed at the development of agriculture and rural areas of the country due to scientific and technical progress), receive financial assistance from the Innovation Fund of small business support. Participation in government programs is VAT refunds, grants, subsidies, tax deductions for research and development, staff training.All this time, “Yangcheng” supplied worldwide fentanyl, its derivatives and precursors. The management of the company closely monitored the changes in the law, and as soon as some stuff got in the lists of controlled, its production was stopped.If in the USA they were brought under control in 2007 and 2010, the China — only in 2017. In the period in which Chinese companies were able to trade them without control by the authorities. Other precursors are not controlled so far (in China, USA and other countries). According to Ben Westhoff, 2017, the company “Yancheng” sells two such substances, and sales managers offer to put them in fake packaging disguised, for example, chips or dog food.Rising prices and the number ubijstvami delivery of fentanyl from China to the United States in recent years almost stopped. The main buyers of drugs have become the Mexican cartels.In may last year, Mexican newspaper El Universal wrote that the law enforcement agencies of Mexico is known 13 the main channels of supply of fentanyl in the United States. A drug delivered by light aircraft, were transported in buses, cars and commercial vehicles��Ilah, it was transported by the couriers, zaglatyvanii sachets of powder, sent him parcels, the owners of fishing boats and yachts, transporting it by sea. The main criminal groups, which controlled the flow, was the cartel “Sinaloa” cartel “New generation Jalisco” (Jalisco Nueva Generacion Сartel, CJNG).Fentanyl is difficult to produce from scratch, so the supply of precursors from China have been an integral link in the criminal chain. Once in Hubei province (whose capital is Wuhan) 23 Jan 2020 was quarantined, the chain broke. Stopped working the largest factory for the production of precursors to fentanyl. On the websites which they traded, there was the same type of the announcement on termination of sale and delivery. Traders switched to other products that are in high demand, such as medical masks.Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection via ZUMA Wire / tasks of the first difficulties the Mexican criminals faced in February. As reported by the Mexican radio station MVS Noticas, the criminal group La Union Tepito, controlling drug trafficking and other areas of criminal business in Mexico city, capital of Mexico, failed to receive tribute from the counterfeit clothes, shoes and accessories like Chinese fake stopped coming to Mexico. The fact that trade was conducted in cash. Couriers of a criminal gang, used to fly to China with suitcases of money, since mid-February, lost the opportunity to do so: the traffic stopped.In March of problems felt by traders fentanyl. March 5 MVS Noticas, citing the Prosecutor General’s office of Mexico reported that the CJNG may not get from their Chinese partners, the precursor to fentanyl. It was reported that the group intends to raise the price until it sells existing stocks of the drug, and may face competition from other drug cartels in the struggle for attractive American market.Additional challenges to Mexican criminals created the closing of the American frontier, announced on 20 March in connection with the epidemic of the coronavirus. The ban covers all trips, except the vital. Until the closure of the border crossing every day over 1 million people.Prices for drugs in the United States actually increased. According to the office for the fight against drugs, pill fentanyl has risen in San Diego from $5 to $7. 20% increase and the wholesale price of the drug in Mexico.Falko Ernst, a senior analyst with the nonprofit organization International Crisis Group, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times said that the members of the Mexican criminal groups are complaining that the leadership of the cartels did not pay them a salary. Due to quarantine measures imposed by many countries, is having difficulty with the transportation to Mexico of cocaine from South America. Raised the prices of their services and specialists in illegal border crossing.�� next?Author of “Fentanyl, Inc.” Ben Westhoff believes that the impact on drug trafficking caused by the coronavirus, is a short— term phenomenon. According to the office for the fight against drugs, Mexican criminals are looking for ways to make yourself a drug to no longer depend on Chinese supplies. “The short answer is: coronavirus have put a dent in the trafficking of fentanyl. Long answer: fentanyl will find how to get back. And since synthetic drugs are the future of all drugs, after returning, worse than ever,” reads the last entry in the blog of Mr. Westhoff.Alexey Alexeev
