The Fentanyl Triangle: How Chinese Brokers, Mid-East Mafias, and Mexican Cartels Use U.S. Towns in Deadly Trade

 A $30 million laundering indictment in South Carolina reveals how fentanyl profits were funneled through electronics exports to Hong Kong and Dubai

SOUTH CAROLINA — Chinese money brokers in Georgia worked with Middle Eastern mafia cells in South Carolina to launder fentanyl cash collected across American cities for the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, converting the fatal drug proceeds into electronics goods shipped to Hong Kong and Dubai. The scheme formed part of a transnational pipeline that reveals a disturbing nexus between Chinese, Mexican, and Middle Eastern threat actors, an explosive indictment unsealed yesterday shows.

The global patterns revealed here—involving China-based laundering networks believed to have ties to the Chinese state, Mexican drug syndicates, and Middle Eastern cells, all operating through trade-based money laundering structures—reflect a convergence of illicit finance that U.S. and Canadian experts have warned about in recent years. These poly-drug laundering operations, blending fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and cannabis profits, funnel narcotics cash into “legitimate” global trade via electronics and other consumer goods.

A federal grand jury in Florence, South Carolina, has indicted three individuals in what officials describe as a sprawling transnational network connected to hundreds of millions in dirty cash. On April 22, the grand jury charged brothers Nasir Ullah, 28, and Naim Ullah, 32—both of Sumter, South Carolina—along with Puquan Huang, 49, of Buford, Georgia, with conspiring to launder at least $30 million in proceeds from the trafficking of fentanyl and cocaine.

Huang, with ties to China-based money launderers, reportedly fulfilled the role of organizing cash collection for Middle Eastern mafia cells, reflecting the system that senior U.S. and Canadian investigators have explained to The Bureau—in which Chinese professional money brokers bid for contracts to warehouse and clean drug proceeds from global narcotics players across North America.

These Chinese underground banks are often ultimately directed by Triad bosses in China, Hong Kong, Vancouver, Toronto and New York City. As reported by ProPublica, U.S. investigators have even documented Chinese diplomatic links to American diaspora crime leaders involved in these narco-laundering networks.

Buford, Georgia—a small city with a population of just over 17,000, located about 40 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta—seems an unlikely hub for a global narco-finance operation. But according to U.S. investigators, it fits a broader pattern: Chinese state-linked illegal cannabis growers, drug traffickers, and money brokers increasingly use small towns along the Eastern Seaboard as operational bases, exploiting anonymity and proximity to major highways. U.S. Homeland Security documents say this Chinese network stretches from Maine to Miami, relying on the I-95 corridor as a major narcotics and cash trafficking route.

In this case, officials identified one fugitive co-conspirator—Mohammad Azam Khan, the Ullah brothers’ father—now believed to be residing in Dubai.

The indictment, unsealed April 24, alleges the trio provided laundering services to major Mexican drug cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación. Acting U.S. Attorney Brook B. Andrews described the network as “one of the largest professional money laundering operations in state history,” adding that the defendants “offered their services to drug dealers across the Southeast.” According to prosecutors, the laundered funds trace directly to narcotics trafficked into the United States via Mexico and were funneled to China and the Middle East under the guise of international trade.

Court documents also reference hundreds of millions of dollars seized during multiple traffic stops in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina between July 2021 and November 2024. Police traced the money to the sale of fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana, and heroin—underscoring the poly-drug nature of the laundering network.

The scale of the narcotics trade supported by this scheme was enormous. According to the DEA’s Atlanta Field Division, one intercepted cash haul of approximately $177,000 could have financed up to 7 kilograms of raw fentanyl—enough to press between 3.5 and 7 million counterfeit pills. Officials estimate the broader network helped traffickers move proceeds that would fund the purchase of hundreds of kilograms of fentanyl, cocaine, cannabis, and other illicit drugs over several years—fueling addiction and violence far beyond South Carolina.

The investigation culminated in January 2025, when police and federal agents raided two commercial properties and two homes in Sumter. During these raids, Nasir Ullah, Naim Ullah, and a third man were arrested. Officers seized $230,000 in cash, three vehicles, 11 firearms, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in luxury jewelry. Subsequently, Puquan Huang was arrested in Georgia and is expected to be extradited to South Carolina.

Federal investigators say the money laundering network led by the Ullah brothers and Huang relied heavily on trade-based laundering methods—converting drug cash into consumer electronics and other high-value merchandise that could be exported overseas. The crew allegedly collected bulk cash from dealers across multiple U.S. states, purchased electronics with those funds, and shipped the goods to China, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates. Once abroad, the goods were resold, and cartel operatives received their profits in sanitized form—as earnings from commercial trade rather than narcotics.

Court documents state that communications with co-conspirators in China were key to coordinating this scheme. Huang, identified as a Chinese national with cross-border business ties, allegedly served as the broker between the Ullahs and PRC-based underground bankers. These brokers, operating outside China’s official financial system, helped convert dollars into yuan using informal exchanges and false invoices—a classic shadow banking technique.

The indictment also details how Middle Eastern organized crime cells formed a crucial node in the laundering circuit. According to court filings, electronics purchased with drug proceeds were shipped to Dubai, where they were sold to further obscure the illicit cash and convert it into usable assets. Mohammad Azam Khan—the father of the two South Carolina-based defendants—is believed to have coordinated the Hong Kong-to-UAE segment of the laundering chain from his base in the Gulf.

This configuration—a laundering network bridging China, Mexico, and the Middle East through U.S. cash collection hubs—mirrors patterns seen in prior DEA investigations. The same financial nodes—Hong Kong, Dubai, and Mexican border cities—feature prominently in Chinese and Iranian state-linked underground banking operations with deep ties to Vancouver and Toronto.

The Bureau’s review of the notorious Altaf Khanani case—alongside the conviction of former RCMP intelligence boss Cameron Ortis—shows how these networks exploit Canadian cities to clean drug proceeds and obscure terror financing. Ortis, convicted of leaking classified Five Eyes intelligence to money laundering syndicates with ties to Hezbollah, compromised U.S. and Australian operations targeting figures like Khanani, whose global laundering empire moved billions in narco and terror cash through Hong Kong, the Gulf, and North America. The methods now surfacing in South Carolina—where cartel fentanyl profits were laundered through Chinese brokers and Middle Eastern mafias—follow the same financial geography and trade-based tactics.

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