THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 7, 2019 at 13:00 JST
Police stand guard outside the Xingtai Intermediate People’s court in Xingtai county, north China’s Hebei province, on Nov. 7. (AP Photo)
XINGTAI, China--A Chinese court sentenced three fentanyl traffickers Thursday in a case that was a culmination of a rare collaboration between Chinese and U.S. law enforcement to crack down on global networks that manufacture and distribute lethal synthetic opioids.
Liu Yong was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, while Jiang Junhua and Wang Fengxi were sentenced to life in prison. Six other members of the operation got lesser sentences.
Working off a 2017 tip from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Chinese police busted a drug ring based in the northern Chinese city of Xingtai that shipped synthetic drugs to the United States and other countries from a gritty clandestine laboratory.
Liu had been accused of manufacturing and trafficking synthetic drugs from the lab in eastern China's Jiangsu province. Death sentences are almost always commuted to life in prison after the reprieve.
U.S. officials say China's vast chemicals industry is the main source of illicit fentanyl. Chinese officials deny that, blaming greedy pharmaceutical companies, lax regulation and out-of-control demand as the reasons America has an opioid abuse crisis.
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