Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced indictments of two Chinese nationals and their North American counterparts on Tuesday, charging them with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and fentanyl analogs in the United States.
Xiaobing Yan, 40, and Jian Zhang, 38, were indicted in the Southern District of Mississippi and District of North Dakota, respectively, for their operation of drug rings that distributed fentanyl and other opioids to drug distributors and individual users in the United States. Both men advertised directly to Americans, who purchased their drugs over the so-called “dark web.”
The two are the first Chinese nationals designated as Consolidated Priority Organization Targets (CPOTs), defined as “‘command and control’ elements of the most prolific international drug trafficking and money laundering organizations.”
“CPOTs are among the most significant drug trafficking threats in the world. The defendants allegedly shipped massive quantities of deadly fentanyl and other synthetic opioids to communities throughout the United States, mostly purchased on the Internet and sent through the mail. The chemicals allegedly killed and injured people in several states, and surely caused misery to many thousands of people,” Rosenstein said.
Read more at the Free Beacon.
