Six Chinese nationals and two Chinese pharmaceutical companies are facing federal charges in drug and money laundering conspiracies involving chemical agents used to manufacture and cut fentanyl, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Three defendants are charged with attempting to provide material support to a Mexican drug cartel that was designated a foreign terrorist organization by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February 2025.
A federal grand jury in Dayton, Ohio, filed the indictment Tuesday against Hanson Zhao, Gao Yanpeng, Xia Yi, Zhang Jian, Wang Zhaolan, and Zhang Chunhai, along with Shandong Believe Chemical Company PTE Ltd. and Shandong Ranhang Biotechnology Co. Ltd.
The defendants are charged with conspiring to manufacture, to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute 400 grams or more of a fentanyl mixture, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and up to life in prison.
Zhao and the two companies were also charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, Cartel del Golfo, or the Gulf Cartel, a violent transnational organization based in Mexico involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, human smuggling, and other crimes.
All eight defendants were charged with money laundering conspiracy, and Zhao separately faces an obstruction of justice charge.
The material support, money laundering, and obstruction counts each carry potential penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
"We are going after the entire chain of supply for these deadly drugs, from Mexican cartels and Chinese pharmaceutical companies to the high-level distributors on our streets in the Southern District of Ohio," U.S. Attorney Dominick Gerace II said in a news release.
According to the indictment, the defendants are accused of openly marketing, selling, and delivering various chemical precursors for domestic and foreign drug traffickers to use to manufacture and produce fentanyl for distribution in the U.S.
Drug traffickers use chemical precursors to manufacture fentanyl and substances known as "cut" to increase the quantity of doses available for sale.
For example, drug traffickers often "cut" fentanyl with medetomidine, an animal tranquilizer not approved for human use in the United States.
Prosecutors said the drug can be up to 200 times as powerful as morphine and significantly increase the yield of fentanyl.
Prosecutors said the companies allegedly used the six individuals to solicit, negotiate, and secure payments for illegal cutting agents from U.S. customers.
The indictment alleges the defendants directed customers to pay using cryptocurrency transferred to wallets under their control, with funds routed through multiple accounts to conceal their origin before being converted into foreign currency overseas.
In September, three U.S. citizens, 22 Chinese nationals, and four Chinese pharmaceutical companies were charged by a federal grand jury in Dayton in similar drug and money laundering conspiracies involving illegal cutting agents.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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