(March 28): US shipping and logistics company IMC Pro International has agreed to pay US$400,000 (RM1.77 million) to the US government to settle allegations that it helped Chinese chemical companies ship fentanyl-making chemicals to the US, according to US authorities.

The deal was announced on Wednesday by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas. It marks the first time a US shipping company has settled accusations that it violated the Controlled Substances Act by transshipping fentanyl precursors through the US. The monetary settlement does not include an admission of guilt.

Chemical smugglers increasingly route fentanyl precursors through the US and then down to Mexico, where the chemicals are turned into street fentanyl in clandestine labs. These packages are hidden in plain sight amid the deluge of cheap e-commerce goods that arrive by air from China to the US each day.

Last year, Reuters became the first news organisation to reveal this circuitous but effective smuggling route and the way an obscure US trade provision has aided traffickers. The rule, known as “de minimis,” allows merchandise with a value totaling less than US$800 to enter the country duty-free and with minimal inspections.

“This first-of-its-kind settlement exposes loopholes some companies are exploiting to bring poison to our communities,” said Daniel Comeaux, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA’s Houston Division.

The case began in 2023 when US authorities seized five boxes of fentanyl-making chemicals in Eagle Pass, Texas, along the border with Mexico. IMC Pro was listed as the company that sent the packages. The value of the contents was listed as under US$800, which would have made the parcels eligible for streamlined entry under de minimis, authorities said.

But IMC Pro was not the sender, authorities learned. Instead, it had struck deals with Chinese chemical companies that gave them access to IMC Pro’s shipping accounts. This allowed the Chinese firms to pre-print US shipping labels that listed IMC Pro as the company that sent the goods, authorities said, in what appears to be an attempt to obscure their origins.

An employee at IMC Pro reached by telephone on Thursday said the company declined to comment. The company did not respond to emailed questions.

IMC Pro was founded in 1994 and has offices in Compton, California, and Bensenville, Illinois, according to its website.

The seized boxes contained over 25kg of 1-boc-4-piperidone, a regulated chemical that is a common precursor used by fentanyl cooks in Mexico. The parcels also contained nearly 140kg of (2-bromoethyl)benzene, another key fentanyl ingredient that is on the DEA’s Special Surveillance List. These chemicals were slated to be routed across the border into Mexico, authorities said.

As part of an investigation published last year, Reuters purchased both of these chemicals from Chinese sellers in order to penetrate the shadowy supply chain of fentanyl precursor chemicals.

This investigation revealed that it remains astonishingly cheap and easy to purchase these chemicals, and that Washington’s own trade policies have turned the US into a major transshipment hub for Chinese fentanyl chemicals, stoking an overdose death toll approaching 450,000 American lives.

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