"They are knee deep in actively sponsoring and encouraging and facilitating the production and export of fentanyl for distribution in the United States": Former AG
A U.S. Congress committee investigation has presented compelling evidence that Beijing is paying organized crime to traffic fentanyl globally while elite Chinese Communist Party officials are directly implicated in related drug money laundering networks, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday.
Barr was testifying for the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and said he believes Beijing is backing Chinese fentanyl syndicates with the overarching objective of weakening the United States.
The bipartisan group of legislators tabled a report that alleges since “at least 2018” President Xi Jinping’s regime has provided nationwide government subsidies to PRC companies that manufacture fentanyl and its precursors, “so long as these companies sell [it] outside China.”
The committee also found China’s government has ownership stakes in some chemical companies “exporting significant amounts of illicit fentanyl products.”
The bipartisan committee, led by Congressman Mike Gallagher, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer, also reported it believes Xi’s regime is deliberately weaponizing fentanyl, which killed 112,000 U.S. citizens last year, as part of a Chinese Communist strategy to weaken the U.S. and its liberal democratic allies.
“The fentanyl trade boosts China's economy and has allowed Chinese organized crime to become the world's premier money launderers,” the committee’s report said, “with U.S. law enforcement finding evidence indicating that money laundering schemes involve Chinese government officials and the Communist Party elite.”
In his testimony Barr said senior U.S. officials have long suspected that Beijing was complicit in global fentanyl trafficking and organized crime, but “the question was murky.”
“Has this been an illicit business carried out by Chinese organized crime, and corrupt businessmen and officials, with the Chinese government simply reluctant to spend too much effort trying to help the U.S. stop something that they view as primarily our problem?” Barr said. “Or is this effectively an intentional program to wreak havoc in the U.S. even with support and encouragement by the Chinese Communist Party and the PRC? Many of us have suspected the latter. But the question was murky. Until now.
“The Committee has uncovered persuasive evidence that the PRC and the CCP are not just bystanders. They are prime movers. They are knee deep in actively sponsoring and encouraging and facilitating the production and export of fentanyl for distribution in the United States.”
Ray Donovan, former chief of operations for DEA, told the committee its investigation proves what his colleagues believe regarding Beijing’s involvement in global fentanyl trafficking.
“This is about saving lives,” he said. “I do think that we are under attack and I think its intentional. This is an effort by the CCP to tear our social fabric and undermine our economy with billions in black currency, through their drug trade.”
“I think this is strategic,” Barr agreed. “Fentanyl has imposed great costs on our society.”
The committee also heard, that in response to U.S. government efforts to interdict floods of fentanyl originating from Chinese factories and shipped through states including Mexico and Canada, “Chinese counterparts instead of helping, warned the drug traffickers of the U.S. investigation, and took no action.”
Barr said the United States should be considering tough sanctions related to Chinese trade to force Beijing to change its policy.
“I think we have to use trade and economic power to press them, and take enforcement action,” Barr said, “because it’s easily detectable.”
“What we are seeing in the United States is likely being seen in other countries, and will only increase in the future,” Barr added. “Our strength will be working multilaterally with other countries. Frankly, China’s economy needs us, more than we need them. We should be increasing the costs of their inactions.”
The committee heard also of deep ties between Chinese fentanyl syndicates that are protected by Beijing, and Mexican cartels.
One of the clans allegedly protected by Beijing is China-based father and son, Guanghua Zheng and Fujing Zheng, each wanted by Washington for rewards of $5 million.
“They are so well known in Mexico,” the committee heard, “they are known as the Los Zheng cartel.”
