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U.S. Missile Strike on Alleged Narco-Boat Tied to Maduro and Ohio Indictment of Chinese Firms Signal Dramatic Escalation in War on Fentanyl

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Sam Cooper's avatar Sam Cooper

From Maduro’s Venezuela to Chinese precursor companies, the administration widens its whole-of-government crackdown on synthetic drugs.

The United States has dramatically escalated its war on fentanyl traffickers this week, with a missile strike on a suspected Venezuelan narco-vessel and a sweeping indictment naming numerous Chinese nationals, chemical precursor companies, and dealers in Ohio.

The Justice Department on Wednesday unveiled an Ohio grand jury indictment charging four China-based chemical companies, 22 Chinese nationals, and three U.S. defendants in a scheme that allegedly pumped potent cutting agents—including Schedule I nitazenes—into southern Ohio’s fentanyl market. The action landed as the administration pressed forward with its “whole-of-government” offensive on synthetic-drug supply lines and newly terror-designated cartels, including a high-profile military strike just hours earlier on a vessel Washington linked to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.

In an interview before this week’s U.S. government strikes on fentanyl networks, Derek Maltz, the recently retired DEA chief, told The Bureau that chemicals like nitazenes are amplifying the existing threat from Chinese-supplied fentanyl, which he and many U.S. experts view as an intentional, war-like attack from Chinese state-linked networks aligned with Latin cartels.

“We’re getting crushed with carfentanil, xylazine, etizolam, isotonitazene—all those different new psychoactive substances which are coming out of China. So it’s just another phase of the attack,” Maltz said. “I believe that the Chinese criminal networks, Chinese Communist Party, have developed an innovative strategy, long-term strategy, to destabilize and destroy American families and communities using synthetic drugs, operating under the radar from this ongoing drug addiction crisis in America.”

Maltz also pointed to Canada’s failure to cooperate with the DEA on investigations into a massive superlab in British Columbia, which some U.S. sources said contributed to President Trump’s decision earlier this year to levy a 35 percent tariff on Canadian goods. In announcing that tariff, a White House statement warned: “Mexican cartels are increasingly operating fentanyl- and nitazene-synthesis labs in Canada.”

On Tuesday, the administration took its most kinetic step yet: a precision strike from international waters in the Caribbean that destroyed a suspected narco-vessel from Venezuela, killing 11 alleged members of the Tren de Aragua. Washington has accused the gang of operating under President Nicolás Maduro, who U.S. officials say is intentionally trafficking cocaine laced with fentanyl into the United States in concert with the Sinaloa cartel.

President Donald Trump announced the strike from the White House—remarkably, in near real time—saying, “We just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat.”

Footage released by the Pentagon showed an explosive strike eerily reminiscent of drone attacks on terrorist vehicles in the Middle East—only this time, the target was described as a narco-terror vessel tied to the Maduro regime. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said more such operations could follow, adding on Fox: “We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua … trying to poison our country with illicit drugs.”

Caracas has disputed the strike, and analysts are already debating its legal basis under U.S. and international law.

Before the strike, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told Fox that if cartels threatened U.S. forces, the administration would “take [them] on,” explicitly suggesting military force outside the United States.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi framed the Ohio prosecution as part of a broader push to “dismantle the international pipelines that bring deadly drugs and precursor to our shores,” vowing “swift, complete justice” for actors in China shipping “poison to our citizens.” FBI Director Kash Patel called it a “first-of-its-kind international operation,” saying agents had already seized enough fentanyl powder “to kill 70 million Americans” and pills sufficient “to kill another 270,000.”

Attacking new chemical precursors and lethal narcotics

A superseding indictment in the Southern District of Ohio alleges that, since at least 2022, Tipp City resident Eric Michael Payne bought kilogram shipments of cutting agents from China-based vendors purporting to be pharmacies or chemical companies, then mixed and resold those agents—at times directly with fentanyl—for street distribution in southern Ohio. Two alleged U.S. co-conspirators are named: AuriYon Tresean Rayford, 24, of Tipp City, and Ciandrea Bryne Davis, 39, of Atlanta.

Prosecutors say the Chinese companies openly marketed “protonitazene” and “metonitazene”—Schedule I nitazenes with estimated potencies roughly 100 and 200 times morphine—and pushed veterinary agents such as medetomidine and xylazine as “cut.” Payments flowed via cryptocurrency to wallets controlled by overseas brokers, then through layered accounts to foreign banks. The filing also details sales of tablet presses and other equipment to facilitate fentanyl cutting and pill-making.

Charged companies are Guangzhou Tengyue Chemical Co., Ltd.; Guangzhou Wanjiang Biotechnology Co., Ltd.; Hebei Hongjun New Material Technology Co., Ltd.; and Hebei Feilaimi Technology Co., Ltd. Named individual brokers include Xiaojun Huang and Zhanpeng Huang, who Treasury simultaneously sanctioned under counternarcotics authorities.

Counts include conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl mixture, possession with intent to distribute, maintaining a drug-involved premises, evidence tampering, and international money-laundering conspiracy. Payne and Rayford made initial appearances Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.

Minutes after DOJ’s announcement, the Treasury Department rolled out sanctions on Guangzhou Tengyue and representatives Xiaojun Huang and Zhanpeng Huang, underscoring a synchronized law-enforcement and financial-pressure playbook against China-based suppliers feeding U.S. overdose deaths.

That campaign has widened in 2025: In February, the State Department —implementing Executive Order 14157 — designated eight “international cartels and transnational criminal organizations,” including CJNG, Sinaloa, and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The move unlocked material-support charges and expanded sanctions. In May, DOJ brought the first material-support-to-terrorism case tied to CJNG, alleging grenade supply and smuggling.

Dayton sits at the junction of Interstates 70 and 75—a central distribution hub for the Midwest—suggesting the new indictment is aimed at severing Chinese cutting-agent pipelines that turn kilogram-scale fentanyl into mass-market pills bound for American communities.

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Crime

China-to-Mexico drug route shattered in record seizure of drug precursor chemicals

Published on September 3, 2025

By

MXM logo MxM News

Quick Hit:

U.S. Attorney Janine Pirro revealed Wednesday the largest federal seizure of drug precursor chemicals in U.S. history, intercepting two shipments from China bound for Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. The chemicals, capable of producing more than 420,000 pounds of methamphetamine, were seized in international waters near Panama.

Key Details:

  • Pirro announced the bust during a press conference in Pasadena, Texas, joined by ICE, DEA, CBP, FBI, and Defense Department officials. The seizures included 363,000 pounds of benzyl alcohol and 334,000 pounds of N-methyl formamide, both closely monitored by the DEA due to their role in synthetic drug production.
  • The Trump administration’s January designation of the Sinaloa Cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization allowed federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., to execute the seizures under terrorism forfeiture laws.
  • Authorities estimated the chemicals could be used to manufacture methamphetamine worth more than $569 million in the Houston area alone, with profits increasing as the drugs reached East Coast markets.

Diving Deeper:

In a sweeping operation that federal authorities are calling a major victory against narco-trafficking, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Janine Pirro announced Wednesday the largest seizure of drug-making chemicals in American history. The confiscation, carried out through two separate maritime interdictions in international waters near Panama, disrupted a trafficking pipeline connecting chemical suppliers in Shanghai, China, with Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.

Pirro detailed that federal agents seized 1,300 barrels of chemicals, including 363,000 pounds of benzyl alcohol and 334,000 pounds of N-methyl formamide, both key ingredients in large-scale methamphetamine production. Officials said the chemicals could have produced more than 420,000 pounds of methamphetamine, with an estimated street value exceeding $569 million in Houston, a figure that would rise as the drugs made their way north.

“Every day, tons of chemicals used to create synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and fentanyl are shipped from China to Mexico in what amounts to an undeclared war against America,” Pirro told reporters. “Every day, funeral homes across this country see the tragic consequences of this war.”

The operation was the result of a multi-agency effort involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the FBI. The Department of Defense also supported the interdictions, reflecting the scale and complexity of the mission. Officials said it would take 24 tractor-trailers to transport the seized chemicals to a secure location.

The Trump administration’s January decision to classify the Sinaloa Cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization played a pivotal role in authorizing the seizures. By leveraging terrorism forfeiture provisions, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., secured the legal authority to seize the chemicals in international waters.

Pirro emphasized that the operation not only cuts off a critical supply chain for one of the world’s most violent cartels but also demonstrates a tougher approach to combatting transnational organized crime. “We are taking this fight directly to the source,” she said.

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Crime

Rep. Luna suggests Epstein’s sex trafficking operation was ‘a lot bigger’ than expected

Published on September 3, 2025

By

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL)

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

‘It is very much (a) possibility that Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligence asset working for our adversaries,’ Rep. Paulina Luna said.

Republican U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida said Tuesday that Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation was “a lot bigger” than anyone anticipated.

“There are some very rich and powerful people that need to go to jail,” Luna said in a statement after she and other lawmakers met with Epstein’s victims. “I think everyone’s frustrated as to why that hasn’t happened before.”

Luna then suggested potential government involvement in Epstein’s sex trafficking — previously alleged by U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta — that many observers believe helps explain the lack of transparency and accountability for those involved in Epstein’s criminal activities.

“It is very much so a possibility that Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligence asset working for our adversaries but also, the question we have is, ‘How much did our own government know about it?’” Luna continued.

Epstein’s involvement in U.S. intelligence was suggested by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, when he explained why he agreed to a non-prosecution deal in the lead-up to Epstein’s 2008 conviction of procuring a child for prostitution. Acosta told Trump transition team interviewers that he was told that Epstein “belonged to intelligence,” adding that he was told to “leave it alone,” The Daily Beast reported.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released 33,295 pages of Epstein-related documents on Tuesday after issuing a subpoena to the Department of Justice. However, the files reveal minimal new information, according to Politico. They include public court documents, photos, and video footage, including police footage of Epstein’s Palm Beach home, and a clip of a woman recounting her time as one of Epstein’s masseuses.

Republican U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky filed a petition Tuesday “to force a vote on binding legislation to release” the full Epstein files. A White House official subsequently told NBC News that supporting Massie’s effort would be “viewed as a very hostile act to the administration.”

“They’re threatening anyone who helps bring true transparency and justice for the survivors,” Massie remarked on X. “This is a tacit admission the Oversight Committee data release is woefully incomplete.”

The FBI triggered a public outcry earlier this year when it released an incomplete set of Epstein files. Some Epstein flight records had been released in previous litigation, but they remain limited, as does other information regarding Epstein’s associates. Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn filed a subpoena in late 2023 to obtain the complete flight logs, and in January 2025 accused Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of blocking her request.

In her book “One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein,” investigative journalist Whitney Webb explained how the intelligence community leverages sex trafficking through operatives like Epstein to blackmail politicians, members of law enforcement, businessmen, and other influential figures.

Webb cited as evidence of this Acosta’s statement that he was told that Epstein “belonged to intelligence.”

While Epstein himself never stood trial, as he allegedly committed suicide while under “suicide watch” in his jail cell in 2019, many have questioned the suicide and whether the well-connected financier was actually murdered as part of a cover-up.

These theories were only emboldened when investigative reporters at Project Veritas discovered that the major news outlets of ABC and CBS News quashed a purportedly devastating report exposing Epstein.

A full list of the names of people mentioned in the previously released Epstein files, including many who have not been accused of any crimes, can be found here. Previously published Epstein flight logs show that former President Bill Clinton along with Secret Service members, actor Kevin Spacey, comedian Chris Tucker, and British model Naomi Campbell all flew on Epstein’s private plane central to his sex-trafficking case, dubbed the “Lolita Express” by the media.

In one batch of unsealed documents, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre said he paid her $15,000 in 2011 to have sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew, and that she had sex multiple times with retail mogul Leslie Wexner, who was a financial client of Epstein’s for at least 20 years. Giuffre has since reportedly died by suicide.

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