Crypto Transactions Link Chinese Fentanyl Suppliers to Mexican Cartels: Chainalysis

Blockchain Analytics Firm Chainalysis has direct financial connections between Mexican drug cartels and Chinese Fentanylvoorlopers discovered suppliers through crypto transactions.

Crypto has “become more and more intertwined in illegal drug trafficking,” said chain analysis researchers in their report Analyze the transactions on Wednesday.

The “Fentanyl trade on chains” includes a “wide series” of players, claims chain analysis.

The connection was mainly followed by a civil forfeiture case In Wisconsin that resulted in the seizure of $ 5.5 million in crypto, so that the welding washers in the US in the US were transferred directly to Chinese chemical manufacturers.

Despite China’s Prohibition of CryptoChinese manufacturers remain the primary source of Fentanylvoorlopers, pilers and falsifying equipment worldwide, with documented transactions with Mexican cartels as primary buyers.

The report quotes how Chinese nationals “are forbidden to buy more than $ 50,000 in foreign currencies” and to resort to the use of alternative financial instruments such as crypto and underground bank networks to avoid capital controls.

Transactions followed by chain analysis showed that cartel-related networks worked with relatively non-advanced crypto techniques, as a result of which funds are quickly moved by centralized exchanges and non-excited portfolios.

The operational pattern gave priority to speed above security, making the transactions “simple but effective” and also make them more visible to researchers.

Chainalysis also claims Mexican organizations, mainly the Sinaloa cartel and cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, buy these precursors to produce synthetic opioids, including Fentanyl, for American distribution.

The cartels determine what authorities describe as “bulk cash-to-crypto pipelines” to facilitate payments.

Legal enforcement officials have identified several components in these crypto-compatible supply chain, including Chinese precursor manufacturers who openly advertise online, shipping shipping, by crypto and darknet markets that facilitate transactions.

Between 2018 and 2023, a group of presumed chemical traders received more than $ 37.8 million in payments made via Crypto received in its report, referring to data from the past.

Published by Sebastian Sinclair