President Trump has blamed China for failing
to crack down on production of the drug, which plagues American streets.
By
Steven Lee Myers
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Police
officers outside the Xingtai Intermediate People’s court in Xingtai County,
where
suspects were sentenced in a fentanyl manufacturing ring.
Credit...Erika
Kinetz/Associated Press
|
XINGTAI,
China — A court in China
convicted and sentenced to death on Thursday a man accused of trafficking
fentanyl to the United States after a joint investigation with American law
enforcement agencies.
The case, involving nine defendants in all,
was a rare example of cooperation against a surge in fentanyl-related deaths
that American officials, including President Trump, have blamed directly on
China’s lax enforcement and even complicity in fueling a drug epidemic on
American streets.
The man sentenced to death, Liu Yong, led an
illicit network of labs that produced and shipped packages of fentanyl to
American users who were able to place orders online through a dealer simply
known as “Diana,” according to the Chinese and American officials.
A judge here in Xingtai, a city in Hebei
Province about 220 miles south of Beijing, sentenced Mr. Liu to death after
detailing a broad conspiracy to manufacture and smuggle fentanyl that evaded
China’s strict controls on pharmaceutical production.
But Mr. Liu’s death sentence was suspended
for two years, leaving open the possibility that it could later be commuted to
life in prison. Eight other co-defendants were also sentenced on Thursday,
including distributors and online sellers. They received sentences ranging from
six months in prison to life.
The case started with an arrest by the Drug
Enforcement Administration in New Orleans in August 2017, leading to an
international investigation into a sprawling underground production network
that prosecutors said Mr. Liu orchestrated.
The network included one lab and two
distribution centers in Shanghai and the neighboring province, Jiangsu. They
were shut down, and 12 kilograms, or about 26 pounds, of fentanyl was seized as
part of the investigation, according to the officials and the court’s ruling.
“The successful outcome of this case,
especially the heavy sentences to the main criminals and others, fully
demonstrates the position and determination of the Chinese government to
severely punish fentanyl-related crimes,” Yu Haibin, the deputy director of
China’s National Narcotics Control Commission, said at a news conference in
Xingtai following the court’s sentencing hearing.
He was joined by diplomats from the United
States Embassy, underscoring China’s eagerness to show it was cooperating with
American law enforcement to combat the fentanyl scourge. Many officials in the
United States have accused China of abetting the trade.
Austin Moore, an Immigration and Customs
Enforcement official working in the United States Embassy in Beijing, attended
the sentencing along with other American diplomats and afterward welcomed the
Chinese cooperation in the case, which he said had also resulted in arrests and
indictments in New York and Oregon.
“I have one more thing to say to those who
make it their business to spread illegal narcotics,” he said at the news
conference, “we make it our business to find you, arrest you and hold you
accountable for your crimes.”
Mr. Moore said the United States looked
forward to greater collaboration as the Chinese government enforces a decision
effective May 1 to classify all variants of fentanyl as controlled substances
subject to strict enforcement.
That legal change, which China’s leader, Xi
Jinping, promised to Mr. Trump last year, closed a loophole in the country’s
laws that allowed manufacturers here to make precursors or slight variations of
fentanyl that were not explicitly banned in China.
As anger rose in the United States over
Chinese complicity in the epidemic, the Chinese have complained that they have
been unfairly blamed for a problem that stems from pervasive drug abuse and the
over prescription of fentanyl and other opioids in the United States.
Mr. Yu, sitting beside Mr. Moore in a hotel
ballroom, reiterated that view on Thursday. He noted that overdose deaths in
the United States had continued to rise even as China intensified its
cooperation with American law enforcement agencies and tightened its own export
controls.
He cited American statistics showing that
customs officials had seized 536 kilograms of fentanyl since October 2018, but
that only 5.87 kilograms of that came from China.
“This data does not support that China is the
main source of fentanyl substances in the United States,” he said.
The sentencing on Thursday comes as aides to
Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump try to finalize an interim deal in the trade war. The
cooperation on display could help smooth the way, though Mr. Yu said the timing
was in no way related, despite Mr. Trump’s outspoken past criticism of China
regarding fentanyl.
The case on Thursday was the first
fentanyl-related case to conclude, Mr. Yu said. Two other cases are still
ongoing.
Claire Fu contributed research.
