Chinese Organization Used Base in Japan to Smuggle Fentanyl to U.S.

A Chinese organization allegedly used a base in Japan to smuggle chemicals into the United States for the production of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the North American country each year. This was revealed by an investigation conducted by the Japanese newspaper “Nikkei”, the contents of which were also independently confirmed by the European investigative journalism collective “Bellingcat”.

According to the investigation, a key figure in the organization had registered a company in the city of Nagoya, and at least until July 2024, he would have given instructions from there on the distribution of the opioid and the management of the funds. The individual, identified as a Chinese citizen residing in Naha, on the island of Okinawa, is the owner or legal representative of at least 18 companies registered in China, Japan and the United States. Among these is the company Firsky KK, which according to “Nikkei” and “Bellingcat” would have acted as a logistical hub for the criminal organization.

Firsky allegedly had close personnel and financial ties to Hubei Amarvel Biotech, a Wuhan-based chemical manufacturer whose executives were convicted in January by a New York federal court of conspiring to import fentanyl precursors into the United States. Company documents show that one of the auditors at its Chinese subsidiary Firsky International Trade (Wuhan) had the same name as one of the executives convicted in the Amarvel case. The two companies’ corporate websites featured identical images of industrial facilities, and one of the social media accounts used for cryptocurrency sales was shared.

According to Nikkei, US authorities are now looking for the alleged leader of the organization, whose current whereabouts are unknown. According to investigative sources, the smuggling network operated in several countries, including Mexico, where drug cartels had ties to the organization linked to Amarvel. This suggests that Japan may have been included as a hub in the global fentanyl trafficking circuits, potentially attracting new geopolitical tensions, also in relation to the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing.

In February and March, the Trump administration imposed tariffs of 20 percent on goods imported from China and 25 percent on products from Mexico and Canada, blaming those three countries for the fentanyl crisis. Until now, Japan had not been officially linked to trafficking in the powerful opioid. Japanese authorities have reiterated that “there are no known cases of fentanyl in the country.” But some experts, including former U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency official Dea Ray Donovan, have highlighted how Japan’s apparent lack of enforcement and reputation for low crime have made the country particularly attractive to traffickers of precursor chemicals.

“In Japan, we would have arrested him,” Donovan said, referring to the ring’s leader. “We have DEA agents at the US Embassy in Tokyo.” According to Ricardo Ravelo, a Mexican drug trafficking expert, some cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel, are expanding their logistics networks through the Japanese port of Yokohama. The risk, analysts say, is that the strengthening of anti-trafficking measures in other countries will push criminal groups to use Japan as a secondary channel for the supply and distribution of fentanyl. Firsky KK was suddenly liquidated in July 2024, while the trial against Amarvel’s top executives was still ongoing in the United States. According to sources contacted by “Nikkei,” the company operated out of a building belonging to a leader of an overseas Chinese association. “We thought it was dealing with batteries,” the man said, “we didn’t know it was involved in fentanyl trafficking.”

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