US puts India, China in same bracket as 'state actors' enabling drug traffickers

The intelligence report was released in Washington, DC on Tuesday. It focused on the most direct, serious threats to the United States, primarily during the next year.

New Delhi: A report by the United States intelligence community has identified India and China as ‘state actors’ often ‘directly or indirectly’ enabling ‘non-state actors’ as sources of precursors and equipment for drug traffickers.

The report, which identified India as a ‘state actor’ directly or indirectly enabling drug traffickers, was released just days after the United States Director of Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, visited New Delhi and called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in addition to having meetings with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

“Nonstate groups are often enabled, both directly and indirectly, by state actors, such as China and India, as sources of precursors and equipment for drug traffickers,” noted the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community.

The report was released in Washington, DC on Tuesday. It focused on the most direct, serious threats to the United States, primarily during the next year.

“China remains the primary source country for illicit fentanyl precursor chemicals and pill pressing equipment, followed by India,” the report noted, adding: “Mexico-based chemical brokers circumvent international controls through mislabeled shipments and the purchase of unregulated dual-use chemicals.”

President Donald Trump’s administration has, over the past few weeks, targeted China, Mexico, and Canada for failing to stop the flow of fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic piperidine opioid primarily used as an analgesic but also abused as a narcotic substance.

A 2020 report by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) noted that India was emerging as a source for finished fentanyl powder and fentanyl precursor chemicals.

The DEA in 2017 provided information to India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, resulting in the takedown of an illicit fentanyl laboratory in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, the following year. The DEA reporting, according to the 2020 report, indicated an Indian national associated with the Sinaloa Cartel of Mexico initially supplied the organization with fentanyl precursor chemicals, NPP and ANPP, after which a Chinese national, also affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel, would synthesize the fentanyl and traffic it from India to Mexico.

Between February and March 2018, the India- and China-based suspects shifted their production from China to India, likely due in part to China’s regulation of ANPP and NPP. The organization likely transferred their production to India because of difficulties obtaining precursor chemicals in China and the increasing pressure from Chinese authorities on fentanyl manufacturing operations, the DEA report in 2020 noted.

Modi and then US President Joe Biden, in June 2023, agreed to expand cooperation and collaboration to disrupt the illicit production and international trafficking of illicit drugs, including synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and Amphetamine-Type Stimulants, and the illicit use of their precursors.