This text is the results of a collaboration with Japanese publishing associate Nikkei. Yow will discover Nikkei’s investigation right here.
Earlier this yr, a person and a girl stood trial in a New York courtroom on prices associated to the illicit medicine 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 compounds 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 based mostly 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 court docket 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 identify who was listed because the proprietor of a Chinese language firm promoting uncooked chemical supplies known as Fushikai Buying and selling Co Ltd, which in line with Nikkei was lively beneath the model identify “Firsky”. A web 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, in line with 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. Data obtained by Nikkei additionally confirmed that the Chinese language firm’s supervisor was listed as Qingzhou Wang, the identical identify 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 displaying the 2 firms are usually 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 potential 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. Nevertheless, data obtained by US regulation enforcement can turn out to be public throughout court docket proceedings.
CourtListener’s Superior RECAP Search is a free software operated by the non-profit Free Legislation Challenge that permits customers to look hundreds of thousands of federal court docket paperwork made obtainable by way of the Public Entry to Courtroom Digital Data (PACER) service.
A CourtListener search for “amarvelbio.com” returned a number of outcomes, together with an exhibit from the federal case in opposition to AmarvelBio. This contained subpoenaed area registration knowledge, which confirmed that convicted AmarvelBio worker Yiyi “Chiron” Chen registered a variety 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 obtainable on CourtListener was registered months after Chen’s 2023 arrest and stays on-line as of publication. This web site lists an deal with 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 electronic mail listed on the positioning makes use of the area for Firsky China – “firsky-cn.com” – which was registered by Chen and is subsequently linked to the community.
Bellingcat additionally discovered Chen’s private gmail deal with 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 an inventory 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 Unhealthy, which had been discovered by way of leak aggregator intelx.io. The chemical compounds adverts had been posted beneath AmarvelBio’s rebranded identify, AmarvelTech, following the Chinese language firm’s indictment in 2023.
A few of the adverts led to whrchem.com – one of many 12 web sites seized by the DEA. Area data found by way of intelx.io revealed that whrchem.com was managed by two electronic mail accounts, one in every of which used the area for Firsky Japan – “firsky-jp.com”. The identical electronic mail can be listed as an “creator” 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 telephone numbers, pictures, watermarks, firm bios and compliance certificates that would not be verified.
Searches for Firsky on the Breaking Unhealthy 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 positioning shows Cindy’s WhatsApp quantity which, searches present, had beforehand been utilized in an AmarvelBio commercial posted on Breaking Unhealthy.
Firsky has a vendor profile with greater than 350 lively listings on the e-commerce platform ChemicalBook. However in one advert, beneath descriptions of the corporate, Firsky is interchangeably described as AmarvelBio.
Whereas many Firsky adverts included inventory photos 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 unit.
AmarvelBio additionally has a ChemicalBook vendor’s profile and shows a certificates (although “Amarvel” seems to be misspelled “Amarbel”) claiming to point out it handed a 3rd occasion high quality inspection. A picture of a certificates bearing an similar report quantity and date, however with Firsky listed beneath “firm identify”, was discovered on one in every of Firsky’s web sites. Beneath the “Normal Feedback” part, each the Amarvel and Firsky certificates include 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., instructed Bellingcat it was unable to confirm the paperwork as a result of they had been incomplete.
Earlier this yr, 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 medicine 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 essentially the most deadly drug disaster in America’s historical past. The artificial opioid is 50 occasions stronger than heroin – a dose as small as 2mg could be deadly. Whereas fatalities have declined in recent times, the opioid epidemic killed greater than 100,000 folks between February 2022 and January 2023, and overdose stays the main reason behind dying for People aged 18 to 44.
The US authorities this yr imposed tariffs on China geared toward placing strain on Beijing to stem the movement of fentanyl precursor chemical compounds into the nation. In June, China added two fentanyl precursors to the checklist of managed substances in what it described as an initiative to satisfy UN drug management obligations, reflecting its “perspective of actively taking part in world drug governance”. Not less than one in every of 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 creator 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 instructed 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 by way of 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 part is affordable in contrast with different world cities. That’s the principle cause,” Takehiro stated. “I’ve been interviewing a variety of 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 subsequently much less more likely 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 court docket paperwork as “the boss in Japan”, stay unknown.
In response to a query on the Breaking Unhealthy discussion board concerning the case in opposition to 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 a variety of new web sites”.
Xia Fengzhi didn’t reply to requests for remark from Nikkei. Legal professionals for Wang and Chen, who’re as a result of be sentenced this month, didn’t reply to requests for remark as of publication.
George Katz and Connor Plunkett contributed to this text.
Bellingcat is a non-profit and the flexibility to hold out our work relies on the type help of particular person donors. If you want to help our work, you are able to do so right here. You can even subscribe to our Patreon channel right here. Subscribe to our E-newsletter and comply with us on Bluesky right here and Mastodon right here.
