Tag Archives: Fentanyl

TD Bank: Largest bank busted for money laundering abruptly shutting 38 branches

Important Takeaways:

  • America’s seventh biggest bank will shut 38 branches as it continues to roil from massive penalties related to failures in its anti-money laundering controls.
  • TD Bank has filed notice with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to close locations across 10 states on June 5.
  • Closures will include six each in New Jersey and Massachusetts, five in New York, four in New Hampshire and Maine, and three in Pennsylvania and Florida, according to The Philadelphia Business Journal.
  • Of the bank’s roughly 1,100 branches across the US, it also plans to shutter two locations each in Connecticut, Virginia and South Carolina, and one in Washington D.C.
  • It comes as banks are shutting branches across the US, leaving communities without access to vital services. Experts are warning that 2025 could be the worst year yet for closures.
  • The bank has been in cost-cutting mode since an investigation into its anti-money laundering compliance efforts ended in October with a $3.2 billion fine.
  • The investigation revealed that failures in its compliance efforts allowed criminals to launder millions in proceeds from fentanyl and narcotics trafficking.
  • It also found that drug traffickers were able to bribe TD employees in some US branches, Reuters reported.
  • TD became the largest bank in US history to plead guilty to violating a federal law aimed at preventing money laundering.
  • It comes as major US banks shut more than 100 locations in just three weeks earlier this year.

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Crackdown on Fentanyl: Trump pressures China with high tariffs 10% on top of 25% if more isn’t done to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the US

Important Takeaways:

  • China is reacting angrily to President Trump’s pledge to impose an additional 10% tariff on its products, saying fentanyl is “the U.S.’s own problem.”
  • Trump said the levy will take effect on Tuesday alongside a 25% tariff on products from Canada and Mexico. The Chinese tariff comes on top of a previously announced 10% tariff on products from the Asian superpower, ratcheting up tensions as the U.S. president says the trio of nations are letting deadly opioids pour into American communities.
  • “China deplores and opposes this move, and will take what is necessary to firmly defend its legitimate interests,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said Friday. “The fentanyl issue is just an excuse the U.S. uses to impose tariffs on, pressure and blackmail China, and they punish us for helping them. This will not solve their concerns.”
  • Chinese manufacturers make precursor chemicals for fentanyl that reach Mexico, where cartels finish the drug product and send it to U.S. communities. A tiny percentage is seized at the Canadian border but the White House stressed that domestic production is increasing in Canada and even small amounts can kill in large numbers.
  • On Friday, Mr. Lin said China agreed to officially restrict fentanyl-related substances at Mr. Trump’s request in 2019. It also struck a deal with President Biden to crack down on the flow of precursor chemicals.
  • “China has conducted counter narcotics cooperation with the U.S. side in a broad-based and in-depth way. The remarkable progress is there for all to see,” Mr. Lin said. “Pressuring, coercion and threat is not the right way to deal with China. Instead, mutual respect is the basic prerequisite.”
  • Trump said there hasn’t been nearly enough progress and that families are being destroyed by tens of thousands of overdose deaths per year in the U.S.
  • Countries like China and Mexico have suggested the U.S. is to blame for its crisis because too many people are addicted to drugs.
  • “China is one of the world’s strictest countries on counter narcotics both in terms of policy and its implementation,” Mr. Lin said. “The fentanyl issue is the U.S.’s own problem.”

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In just 2 days more Chinese illegal immigrants crossed the southern border than all of FY 21

Chinese-migrants-detained

Important Takeaways:

  • The number of Chinese nationals is set to break records this fiscal year
  • There were more than 1,000 apprehensions of Chinese nationals crossing the U.S. border illegally in the last week
  • Overall, across the border, numbers have increased dramatically since FY 21. There were 1,970 encounters in FY 2022, over 24,000 in FY 2023 and so far, there have been over 24,200 encounters so far this fiscal year.
  • House Republicans warned that the Chinese Communist Party “wants the chaos and devastation” that comes from fentanyl coming in to the U.S. Illicit fentanyl is primarily made using Chinese precursors by Mexican cartels and then moved across the southern land border
  • The majority of the Chinese border crossers are single adult males of military age.

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The ‘Franken-drug’ that is 300 times stronger than heroin and 20 times as potent as fentanyl

Nitazenes

Important Takeaways:

  • A synthetic opioid or super-strength painkiller, it was designed to be an alternative to morphine.
  • Appalled at the incredible potency of nitazenes – and the obvious danger that any patients prescribed them would swiftly become addicted – medical regulators blocked the drug’s release.
  • Nitazenes are back and they are now increasingly available on the black market.
  • Many of these labs are in China, and the drugs are so powerful that they have been nicknamed ‘Frankenstein’ opioids.
  • This is a terrifying development, because nitazenes are 20 times stronger than fentanyl, which in 2022 alone killed 75,000 people in America.
  • Another reason for the appearance of nitazenes is a 2019 bilateral agreement between Donald Trump’s administration and China to crack down on the production of Chinese fentanyl.
  • Underground Chinese laboratories, fearful of being caught producing the drug, turned to nitazenes instead.

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Midterms around the corner while our country is rattled by Fentanyl

James 4:17 ”If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Fentanyl crisis rattles Democrats
  • Fentanyl is 50 times more deadly than heroin, which used to be the most feared addictive drug. In much of the country fentanyl has become the leading cause of premature death, outpacing accidents and homicide.
  • Recently a bust in Florida seized enough fentanyl to kill 2.7 million people, some of it hidden in a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal box.
  • In York County, South Carolina, authorities announced their seizure of a cache of fentanyl — more than 30 kilograms — that was enough to kill every person in the entire county.
  • The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has warned against brightly colored fentanyl pills, called “rainbow fentanyl,” which look like candy and attract kids.
  • Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted that “across the country, fentanyl is devastating families and communities.” He identified the source as the outlaw drug cartels operating in northern Mexico, yet Biden has done nothing to disrupt their operations or close our border to the traffickers who bring their deadly product to our country.
  • Open borders and defunding police are what Democrat politicians stand for, and for a while it seemed they would get away with it. Now the fentanyl crisis may be turning undecided voters against Democrat candidates.

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Fentanyl Crisis has progressive leader in California looking for options…Well sort of

Matthew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold

Important Takeaways:

  • Lunatic progressives who turned San Fran into a fentanyl-ravaged hellhole are now begging for ideas to save the city. But there’s a ludicrous catch, reveals DAVID MARCUS — you can’t arrest anyone!
  • In the City by the Bay, 1,700 people have died from drug overdoses since the beginning of 2020. That is nearly 700 more fatalities than the county suffered from the Covid pandemic.
  • Mayor London Breed says she’s now ready to get serious about the problem, by putting an end to open-air drug markets, where users and dealers go about their crimes in full view of the public without any fear of law enforcement.
  • City supervisors released a resolution for a vague ‘soft-touch’ initiative called ‘San Francisco Recovers.’
  • And here’s the catch, and it’s a doozy: the plan is being touted as, ‘a way that nobody’s going to jail but we’re doing an effective job of interrupting the drug market and drug scenes.’
  • The refusal to enforce the law is what landed the city in this predicament.
  • San Francisco is doubling down on this despair.

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Fentanyl the leading cause of overdose deaths. Making up 64%

2 Thessalonians 2:11 “Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false”

Important Takeaways:

  • Drug overdose deaths up again in Virginia in 2021, fentanyl the leading cause
  • Virginia saw an overall 15% increase in drug overdose deaths from 2020 to 2021
  • The fourth-quarter report shows 2,656 total overdose deaths in 2021, a 15% increase from 2020. Synthetic fentanyl was reported as contributing to the most deaths, with 2,033 deaths recorded. Cocaine proved the second most common contributor to drug overdoses in Virginia in 2021, with 801 deaths reported versus the 650 reported in 2020.
  • The CDC reported a 28.5% increase in overall drug overdoses from 2020 to 2021. Opioid overdoses also saw a nearly 26% increase from 2020 to 2021 nationally, with 75,673 total opioid overdose deaths reported in 2021, according to the CDC.
  • “Fentanyl and fentanyl related substances are fueling the overdose epidemic, killing 64,178 Americans between May 2020 and April 2021 and making up 64% of total U.S. overdose deaths,” the letter said.
  • Approximately 10,586 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the southern border in 2021, with US Customs and Border Patrol reporting a “substantial increase” in fentanyl seizures as of January.

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U.S. drug overdose deaths rise 30% to record during pandemic

By Julie Steenhuysen and Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – A record number of Americans died of drug overdoses last year as pandemic lockdowns made getting treatment difficult and dealers laced more drugs with a powerful synthetic opioid, according to data released on Wednesday and health officials.

U.S. deaths from drug overdoses leapt nearly 30% to more than 93,000 in 2020 – the highest ever recorded.

“During the pandemic, a lot of (drug) programs weren’t able to operate. Street-level outreach was very difficult. People were very isolated,” said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

Arman Maddela, 24, recognizes he was at risk of being among those who died. A recovering addict, he relapsed during the pandemic and was using fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 80-100 times stronger than morphine, and heroin.

“It’s so easy to pass away from using drugs nowadays, just because of the amount of fentanyl out there. A lot of people in the past were able to relapse and come back. But nowadays, that’s not the case,” he said.

He checked himself into rehab a second time in October. “I actually know quite a few people personally that have unfortunately passed away since then from overdose,” said Maddela, who lives in Encinitas, California.

While overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the COVID-19 outbreak, the latest data show a stark acceleration during the pandemic.

Social distancing reduced access to programs that offer needle exchange, opioid substitution therapy or safe injection sites where observers could deploy the overdose antidote Narcan, leaving many addicts to die alone.

Moreover, during stay-at-home orders, addicts were unable to attend support group meetings in person or visit their therapists for live one-on-one sessions.

Pandemic lockdowns and distancing likely contributed to the rise in overdose deaths in less obvious ways, too.

Isolation is known as a factor in anxiety and depression, said Kate Judd, program director at Shoreline Recovery Center, the San Diego rehab facility that treated Maddela. Those feelings can lead to drug abuse.

The drugs themselves became more deadly as well. Drug suppliers more frequently mixed fentanyl with cocaine and methamphetamine to boost their effects, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.

“The type of drugs that are now available are much more dangerous,” Volkow said. Closing national borders did not staunch the flow of fentanyl as hoped. Instead, it accelerated.

The deadly combination of events resulted in 93,331 overdose deaths in the 12 months ended in December 2020, compared with an estimated 72,151 deaths in 2019, according to provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The data showed opioids were involved in 74.7% of overdose deaths, rising to 69,710 in 2020 from 50,963 in 2019.

“We do know the primary driver of the increase (in deaths) involves synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl,” Bob Anderson, chief of the Mortality Statistics Branch at the health statistics center, said.

Most U.S. states were swept by the trend, Anderson said, with the highest increases in overdose deaths seen in Vermont, up 57.6%; followed by Kentucky, up 54%; South Carolina, up 52%; West Virginia, up nearly 50%; and California, up 46%.

On a day-to-day basis, Sharfstein estimates that the United States is now seeing more overdose deaths than COVID-19 deaths.

“This is a different kind of crisis, and it’s not going to go away as quickly.”

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California, additional reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer and Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. imposes sanctions on Chinese national over fentanyl trafficking

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on a Chinese national, accusing him of trafficking fentanyl to the United States.

It said in a statement that Taotao Zhang, a chemist and chemical supplier, had shipped illicit synthetic opioids to the United States. The Treasury also blacklisted Hong Kong-based Allyrise Technology Group Co, Limited, of which Zhang is director, accusing it of being a front company for his financial transactions.

Fentanyl is a cheap opioid painkiller 50 times more potent than heroin that has played a major role in an opioid crisis in the United States, where more than 28,000 synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths were recorded in 2017.

U.S. officials say China is the main source of illicit fentanyl. President Donald Trump has accused Chinese President Xi Jinping of failing to meet promises to help stop the flow of the drug into the United States, a charge Beijing rejects.

“The United States remains committed to protecting vulnerable Americans by targeting individuals peddling this deadly drug,” Treasury Deputy Secretary Justin Muzinich said.

Tuesday’s action freezes any U.S. assets of Zhang and the Hong Kong-based company and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said it coordinated the move with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; editing by Grant McCool)

China, U.S. to disclose details of rare cooperation against fentanyl drug scourge

China, U.S. to disclose details of rare cooperation against fentanyl drug scourge
BEIJING (Reuters) – Drug law enforcement officers from China and the United States will jointly brief the media on Thursday on a fentanyl smuggling case, in an unusual disclosure of rare Sino-U.S. cooperation in cracking down on fentanyl crimes.

China’s National Narcotics Control Commission and enforcement officers from both countries will give “detailed information” at a press conference in Xingtai city in northern Hebel province about a fentanyl smuggling case that was jointly uncovered by both sides, according to a notice circulated by the State Council Information Office.

Reporters will also be able to view a live broadcast of the trial at the Xingtai court, before the press conference.

Fentanyl is a cheap, relatively easy-to-synthesize opioid painkiller 50 times more potent than heroin that has played a major role in a devastating U.S. opioid addiction crisis.

U.S. officials say China is the main source of illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances that are trafficked into the United States, much of it through international mail. China denies that most of the illicit fentanyl entering the United States originates in China.

U.S. President Donald Trump accused Chinese President Xi Jinping in August of failing to meet his promises to crack down on the deluge of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues flowing into the United States. China labeled that “blatant slander”.

The dispute over fentanyl comes with the United States in the middle of a major trade dispute with China.

China’s National Narcotics Control Commission said in September that Sino-U.S. cooperation on investigating and prosecuting fentanyl-related substances was “extremely limited”, even though counter-narcotics law enforcement departments from both sides had long maintained a good cooperative relationship.

The sudden show of cooperation announced on Tuesday coincides with intense bilateral negotiations over a phase-one trade agreement which Trump said he hoped to sign with Xi.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Mark Heinrich)