This text is the results of a collaboration with Japanese publishing companion Nikkei. You’ll find Nikkei’s investigation right here.
Earlier this 12 months, a person and a girl stood trial in a New York courtroom on costs associated to the illicit medication commerce. They’d been arrested as a part of an undercover sting by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after greater than 200 kilograms of precursor chemical substances used to make the artificial opioid fentanyl had been shipped from China to the US. It was sufficient to make 25 million lethal doses of the drug, authorities stated.
The Chinese language nationals had been additionally accused of conspiring to import tonne-quantities of fentanyl precursors to the US, the place tens of hundreds of individuals die from opioid overdoses yearly. After a two-week trial, a Manhattan jury discovered the pair responsible of conspiracy to import fentanyl precursors and conspiracy to commit cash laundering.
Qingzhou “Bruce” Wang, 36, and Yiyi “Chiron” Chen, 32, labored for Hubei Amarvel Biotech (AmarvelBio), a chemical agency primarily based within the Chinese language metropolis of Wuhan. They had been arrested in 2023 after being lured from China to Fiji as a part of a DEA operation and subsequently extradited to the US. The case marked the primary time US authorities prosecuted Chinese language firm executives for trafficking fentanyl precursors.
However courtroom paperwork confirmed there could also be hyperlinks to a different East Asian nation. Bellingcat was contacted by the Japanese newspaper Nikkei, which was investigating AmarvelBio’s connection to Japan, suspecting the nation was getting used as a command put up for the cross-border smuggling operation.
Nikkei was wanting into Xia Fengzhi, a Chinese language man referred to within the New York authorized proceedings as “the boss in Japan”. It had discovered a person by that title who was listed because the proprietor of a Chinese language firm promoting uncooked chemical supplies known as Fushikai Buying and selling Co Ltd, which based on Nikkei was energetic underneath the model title “Firsky”. An internet site for Firsky China included a certificates for Fushikai Buying and selling with the identical identification code seen on Fushikai’s company data. The corporate, based on its web site, was a completely owned subsidiary of Firsky Co. Ltd., which was registered in Nagoya, an industrial metropolis in central Japan.
Nikkei pulled the company data for Firsky in Japan, which confirmed Xia headed the corporate. Information obtained by Nikkei additionally confirmed that the Chinese language firm’s supervisor was listed as Qingzhou Wang, the identical title as one of many two AmarvelBio executives convicted within the US.
Nikkei requested Bellingcat’s monetary investigations crew to leverage its experience in open supply analysis to independently confirm the Japanese firm’s connection to AmarvelBio. Our investigation uncovered proof exhibiting the 2 firms should not solely a part of the identical worldwide smuggling community – they’re successfully one and the identical. That is how we did it.
The Japan Connection
Linking AmarvelBio and Firsky by way of area data was not attainable as a result of each web sites had been registered by way of a supplier that makes use of privateness safety, which conceals private particulars from the general public. Nonetheless, info obtained by US regulation enforcement can grow to be public throughout courtroom proceedings.
CourtListener’s Superior RECAP Search is a free device operated by the non-profit Free Legislation Challenge that permits customers to go looking tens of millions of federal courtroom paperwork made out there by way of the Public Entry to Courtroom Digital Information (PACER) service.
A CourtListener search for “amarvelbio.com” returned a number of outcomes, together with an exhibit from the federal case towards AmarvelBio. This contained subpoenaed area registration information, which confirmed that convicted AmarvelBio worker Yiyi “Chiron” Chen registered plenty of domains, together with for AmarvelBio, its “sister firm” Wuhan Wingroup, and Firsky (in each China and Japan).
One other area (firskytech.com) that was not included within the paperwork out there on CourtListener was registered months after Chen’s 2023 arrest and stays on-line as of publication. This web site lists an tackle in Wuhan and describes itself as a completely Japanese-owned provider of “excessive purity” chemical intermediates. Whereas its registration particulars stay non-public, the contact e-mail listed on the location makes use of the area for Firsky China – “firsky-cn.com” – which was registered by Chen and is due to this fact linked to the community.
Bellingcat additionally discovered Chen’s private gmail tackle within the supply code in archives of three web sites (right here, right here and right here) that had been in each the subpoenaed registration data and a listing of 12 domains US authorities seized after linking them to AmarvelBio, additional corroborating her involvement.
Extra area hyperlinks between AmarvelBio and the Japanese iteration of Firsky had been recognized in archived ads from the darknet market Breaking Dangerous, which had been discovered through leak aggregator intelx.io. The chemical substances adverts had been posted underneath AmarvelBio’s rebranded title, AmarvelTech, following the Chinese language firm’s indictment in 2023.
A number of the adverts led to whrchem.com – one of many 12 web sites seized by the DEA. Area data found through intelx.io revealed that whrchem.com was managed by two e-mail accounts, one in all which used the area for Firsky Japan – “firsky-jp.com”. The identical e-mail can also be listed as an “writer” on an archive of whrchem.com.
Bellingcat’s evaluation of AmarvelBio and Firsky’s profiles, ads and salespeople uncovered additional hyperlinks between the 2 firms, together with recycled cellphone numbers, images, watermarks, firm bios and compliance certificates that might not be verified.
Searches for Firsky on the Breaking Dangerous discussion board returned an current profile for a salesman known as “Cindy”, whose contact web site was listed as bmkpmkbdo.com. A 2024 archive of the location shows Cindy’s WhatsApp quantity which, searches present, had beforehand been utilized in an AmarvelBio commercial posted on Breaking Dangerous.
Firsky has a vendor profile with greater than 350 energetic listings on the e-commerce platform ChemicalBook. However in one advert, underneath descriptions of the corporate, Firsky is interchangeably described as AmarvelBio.
Whereas many Firsky adverts included inventory photographs branded with its watermark, some merchandise marketed by Firsky had been clearly branded as AmarvelBio and displayed the “Hubei Amarvel Biotech Co., Ltd” watermark. One Firsky web site and AmarvelBio’s ChemicalBook profile each displayed a picture of the identical manufacturing facility.
AmarvelBio additionally has a ChemicalBook vendor’s profile and shows a certificates (although “Amarvel” seems to be misspelled “Amarbel”) claiming to indicate it handed a 3rd get together high quality inspection. A picture of a certificates bearing an an identical report quantity and date, however with Firsky listed underneath “firm title”, was discovered on one in all Firsky’s web sites. Below the “Common Feedback” part, each the Amarvel and Firsky certificates comprise a reference to “Huibei Amarbel Biotech Co., Ltd., positioned in Wuhan”.
The corporate stated to have issued the certificates, SGS-CSTC Requirements Technical Providers Co. Ltd., advised Bellingcat it was unable to confirm the paperwork as a result of they had been incomplete.
Earlier this 12 months, Bellingcat and the Estonian outlet Postimees investigated the net sale of nitazene opioids from Chinese language suppliers. It discovered that entities concerned in promoting the super-strength medication additionally used Russian Doll-like setups involving a number of firms sharing the identical contact particulars, salespeople, ads and web site layouts.
‘Room for Exploitation’
Illicit fentanyl sourced from China and Mexico has fueled probably the most deadly drug disaster in America’s historical past. The artificial opioid is 50 instances stronger than heroin – a dose as small as 2mg could be deadly. Whereas fatalities have declined lately, the opioid epidemic killed greater than 100,000 folks between February 2022 and January 2023, and overdose stays the main reason behind demise for Individuals aged 18 to 44.
The US authorities this 12 months imposed tariffs on China aimed toward placing strain on Beijing to stem the stream of fentanyl precursor chemical substances into the nation. In June, China added two fentanyl precursors to the listing of managed substances in what it described as an initiative to meet UN drug management obligations, reflecting its “angle of actively taking part in world drug governance”. No less than one in all these precursors has been marketed by AmarvelBio and its affiliated firms, together with some listings that stay on-line on third-party buying and selling web sites.
Takehiro Masutomo, a Tokyo-based journalist and the writer of Run Ri: Tracing the Footsteps of Chinese language Elites Escaping to Japan, has written extensively concerning the new wave of immigration to Japan by Chinese language folks, who now make up that largest group of overseas residents within the nation. He advised Bellingcat that Japan was a beautiful vacation spot not solely due to its proximity to China, cultural ties, and the relative ease with acquiring long-term residential standing through enterprise routes, but additionally as a result of there have been fewer regulatory obstacles. He stated this left “room for exploitation” by criminals.
“It’s very easy to arrange an organization right here, and every thing is affordable in contrast with different world cities. That’s the principle motive,” Takehiro stated. “I’ve been interviewing numerous newly arrived Chinese language folks right here, and I got here throughout some folks, together with criminals. Japan might face a possible improve in monetary crimes, together with cash laundering, involving people from China.”
Nikkei reported that Japan might have been chosen as a base as a result of it’s not extensively related to trafficking fentanyl precursors and due to this fact much less prone to have shipments inspected. Whereas Firsky has been liquidated in Japan, Nikkei stated AmarvelBio’s community continues to function in China. The whereabouts of Xia Fengzhi, described in US courtroom paperwork as “the boss in Japan”, stay unknown.
In response to a query on the Breaking Dangerous discussion board concerning the case towards AmarvelBio in 2023, a person tagged as an “AmarvelBio Vendor” stated US sanctions have “no impact” on Chinese language firms. “The one factor they will do is obstructing [sic] our web site,” they stated. “That is no ache to us, we’ll construct numerous new web sites”.
Xia Fengzhi didn’t reply to requests for remark from Nikkei. Legal professionals for Wang and Chen, who’re as a consequence of be sentenced this month, didn’t reply to requests for remark as of publication.
George Katz and Connor Plunkett contributed to this text.
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