New Delhi: The US sanctioned two Indians and an online pharmacy Wednesday for supplying “counterfeit prescription pills filled with fentanyl and other illicit drugs”, as part of actions to curb illegal trade in opioids.
“Too many families have been torn apart by fentanyl. Today, we are acting to hold accountable those who profit from this poison,” John K. Hurley, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement.
“The Treasury (Department) will continue to advance President (Donald) Trump’s commitment to Make America Fentanyl Free by targeting drug traffickers.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), part of the US Treasury Department, announced that Sadiq Abbas Habib Sayyed and Khizar Mohammad Iqbal Shaikh have been sanctioned for their “collective role” in supplying hundreds of thousands of pills laced with fentanyl to people across the US. An India-based online drug store KS International Traders, owned by Shaikh, has also been sanctioned.
According to the OFAC, Shaikh and Sayyed worked with drug traffickers based in the Dominican Republic and the US to sell counterfeit pills to American citizens.
“Sayyed and Shaikh marketed and sold these pills as discounted, legitimate pharmaceutical products, which were instead filled with illicit drugs like fentanyl, a fentanyl analogue, and methamphetamine,” OFAC said in a statement.
“Sayyed and Shaikh were previously indicted in September 2024 on narcotics-related charges by a federal grand jury sitting in the Southern District of New York.”
KS International, helmed by Shaikh who was born in Mumbai, has a registered address in Mumbai, according to the OFAC, and was established in 2022.
As a result of the actions of the OFAC Wednesday, all properties and entities linked to the two must be reported to the US administration, and all transactions with the accused are considered prohibited.
The latest action comes after the US last week revoked visas of Indian executives and their families over links to smuggling of fentanyl and trade in the base chemicals used to produce the synthetic opioid.
For Trump, curbing trade in fentanyl has become a key domestic policy agenda, and he has even imposed tariffs on trading partners who he believes have insufficiently curbed the trade of the opioid into the North American nation.
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 data published by the US Treasury.
Scanner on India
India’s role in the export of precursor chemicals for fentanyl has come under the lens of the Trump administration.
Last week, the Trump administration notified the US Congress that along with China and Pakistan, India was a major drug transit or illicit drug-producing country. In January this year, the US Justice Department charged two Surat-based companies, Raxuter Chemicals and Athos Chemicals, along with Bhavesh Lathiya, founder of Raxuter, with conspiring to distribute and import fentanyl precursor chemicals into the US.
Apart from the actions against fentanyl suppliers, the US has also deported a number of Indians who attempted to enter the country illegally while also taking aim at nearly 6,000 individuals with student visas who have either overstayed or violated American law.
Last week, the US administration imposed a fee of $100,000 on the next lottery for H1-B visas, a scheme that helped skilled Indian labour shift to the North American nation. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has said the move may have a disruptive impact.
India and the US have had a partial thaw in ties that got tense following the imposition of additional tariffs of 25 percent on Indian goods by Trump. The US President spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day before the Indian leader’s birthday on 17 September.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who is currently in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, met with his American counterpart Marco Rubio Monday.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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