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Death sentence for fentanyl trafficker in China after tip-off from the United States
- A Chinese court hands down tough sentences for central players in synthetic opioid ring
- Gang advertised drugs on English-language websites and mailed the deliveries to the US
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Zhuang Pinghuiin Beijing
A court in northern China has sentenced one fentanyl trafficker to death and eight others to jail in the first big joint drug bust between China and the United States.
The nine were sentenced after pleading guilty to manufacturing and trafficking the opioid to the US in a public trial in Xingtai Intermediate People’s Court, Hebei province, in September last year.
The trial was witnessed by the media and American law enforcement officials and follows tensions between the two countries over regulation of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which have been blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the US.
On Thursday, 41-year-old Jiangsu man Liu Yong was given a two-year suspended death sentence for manufacturing more than 11.5kg (25.3lbs) of fentanyl and over 8kg of other synthetic opioids in 2017.
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After two years, the court might consider commuting the sentence.
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Another central figure in the case, Wang Fengxi, 35, from Xingtai, Hebei, was given a life sentence.
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