New Delhi: The US Embassy in India Tuesday thanked the Indian authorities for playing an instrumental role in disrupting the syndicate distributing precursor chemicals for manufacture and trafficking of banned synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, into America.
“The United States deeply appreciates our partnership with Indian law enforcement, which was instrumental in disrupting key elements of this criminal network distributing precursor chemicals to cartels that manufacture and traffic illegal drugs into the United States,” the embassy stated on X.
Earlier this month, the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 23 individuals and entities said to be part of a sophisticated synthetic opioid procurement network with ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation.
Among the 23 were two Indians: Satishkumar Hareshbhai Sutaria and Yuktakumari Ashishkumar Modi, who were arrested by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) last month as part of a probe into a case involving conspiracy and forgery to procure raw materials and exporting precursors of fentanyl to Mexico and Guatemala.
Based on the investigation, the US Department of Treasury stated in a release last week that Sutaria used his firms SR Chemicals and Agrat Chemicals to export shipments of fentanyl precursors, along with salesperson Modi.
It added that Sutaria facilitated the sale and shipment of these precursors to Mexico and Guatemala, including N-Boc-4-Piperidone, and mislabelled them as “safe chemicals”.
“Sutaria and Modi have used SR Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals (SR Chemicals) and Agrat Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals (Agrat Chemicals), both India-based pharmaceutical chemical companies, to conduct these transactions,” it stated.
Fentanyl is considered the primary driver of the synthetic opioid epidemic in the US, which remains the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, according to US Treasury data.
It is a highly addictive synthetic opioid, approximately 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. It is produced with a series of chemical reactions, the methods for which are called ‘pathways’, and each pathway to fentanyl requires the combination of several component chemicals, which are known as “precursors”.
Stopping the smuggling of fentanyl into the US was declared as a priority of the Trump administration, as stated in a White House document released last April.
The administration has marked fentanyl as driving the opioid epidemic in the South American continent and has vowed to launch a crackdown on the illicit supply chain driving its movement into the US. The Trump administration had earlier slapped tariffs on Canada and China for the export of fentanyl precursors.
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The crackdown in India
According to sources in the Gujarat ATS, a case against Sutaria and Modi was registered on source-based information indicating that they were involved in widespread forgery of end-user certificates to first procure raw materials and then export fentanyl precursors using bogus labels.
Sutaria, through his three firms in Surat, named SR Chemicals, Athos Chemicals and Agrat Chemicals, along with Modi, allegedly convinced a sales purchase manager of Hyderabad-based Aminor Organics into selling psychotropic substances—4-Anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine (ANPP) and N-Phenethyl-4-piperidinone (NPP), which are banned in India—with the intention of exporting them to another country.
The ATS probe further revealed that Agrat Chemicals purchased 1 kg of another fentanyl precursor and exported it to Mexico, submitting a fake end user certificate claiming it was being exported for the manufacture of vitamin B7 used for cosmetic purposes.
Across various consignments in 2024, the Gujarat ATS probe found that Sutaria and Modi procured more than 130 kg of precursors from the Hyderabad firm, based on false end-user certification issued in the name of J&C Import.
According to the findings of the OFAC, the consignments of fentanyl precursors amounting to 116 kg, exported by Sutaria and Modi, were received by one Jaime Augusto Barrientos Camaz (Barrientos), a Guatemala-based broker of fentanyl precursors who sources his supply from various companies in India, including Agrat Chemicals and SR Chemicals.
“Utilising the Guatemala City-based business J and C Import, Barrientos was the end recipient of N-Boc-4-Piperidone totalling 116 kilograms over a two-month period,” the US Treasure Department said in the release, sanctioning Barrientos.
It further explained that Mexican cartels source raw materials and precursors from chemical companies across the world to produce synthetic opioids. However, the OFAC emphasised that these chemical suppliers are predominantly based in Asia, and they sell fentanyl precursors such as 4-Piperidone, N-Boc-4-Piperidone, and other related derivatives online to brokers by the kilogram.
“Per US Department of Justice estimates, one kilogram of the precursor N-Boc-4-Piperidone yields around 1.83 kilograms of fentanyl, a volume with the potential to yield around 900,000 lethal doses,” the release stated.
This is not the first time that Indians have come under the scanner over fentanyl trade in the US.
Last year, US investigators had found two Surat-based firms, Raxuter Chemicals and Athos Chemicals, selling banned fentanyl precursors disguised as antacids to US and Mexican drug trafficking organisations. The promoter of Raxuter Chemicals, Bhavesh Lathiya, also known as Bhavesh Patel, was arrested and charged by the US authorities.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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