Based Underground is now a conservative news aggregator AND curated newsletter.
(Zero Hedge)—It’s worth noting that 100,000 Americans die in drug-related deaths per year, the vast majority from pills cooked with fentanyl, an opioid analog 50 times more potent than heroin. Every six months, the US drug death catastrophe eclipses the Vietnam War.
Fueling the fentanyl epidemic across the US are Chinese money launderers helping international drug traffickers, like Mexican cartels. Capital flight from China is not a new phenomenon, but in recent years, the scale of these transfers, washed through the drug trade, has become very alarming.
Paul Murphy from the Financial Times has provided the most straightforward explanation yet of the new Chinese money laundering network fueling America’s fentanyl crisis:
First, understand that Chinese nationals are barred from transferring more than $50,000 out of China each year. And yet, as you are surely aware, there are many many Chinese nationals living very comfortable lives in the west, as students perhaps, or tourists, or simply not working.
Now understand that Mexican drug cartels are harvesting untold billions of dollars, in cash, selling drugs in North America — and that the pill of the moment is fentanyl, which kills about 70,000 people a year in the US.
The chemicals to make fentanyl come from China. These are shipped to Mexico by otherwise legit Chinese chemical manufacturers.
In Mexico, the cartels turn the chemicals into pills and smuggle these north across the border, where they are sold for cash — dollar bills that then need to be cleaned.
Murphy continued:
Meanwhile, in New York for instance, there will be a Chinese student attending an educational establishment, where the fees will be circa $66,000 a year, books and extras another $10,000, food and lodging costs of maybe $5,000 a month, or a lot more.
The $50,000 Chinese transfer cap doesn’t cover these things, so she will go on WeChat and broadcast a message to her network of friends saying: “I need dollars in New York to meet my outgoings. Can anyone help?”
In due course, someone associated with what is a very efficient Chinese underground banking system will get in touch and tell the student to meet a courier at a preordained time and place, typically a park in Brooklyn. There, the student will be handed a bundle of cash.
Back in China, the parents of the student will then be asked to transfer the same amount of money (plus commission) to an account that will eventually make its way to the chemical company that produced the precursor ingredients for fentanyl, settling the outstanding bill for the Mexican drug cartel.
Murphy explained, “Drug addicts in the US are facilitating the Western education of Chinese youth, as well as helping to fund the lifestyles of other Chinese nations living outside China.”
He provided a flow chart showing how the complex laundering system works.
In a separate report last week, FT’s Joe Miller and James Kynge published an in-depth analysis of the Chinese-Mexican laundering network in a report titled “The new money laundering network fuelling the fentanyl crisis.”
The report sheds light on the less understood part of the money laundering operation — the demand for dollars from wealthy Chinese individuals. While capital flight from China is not new, the methods have become increasingly creative, involving chemical companies that, in turn, have fueled America’s opioid epidemic.
“The levels of capital flight in the past three years have been quite alarming,” one senior Chinese official told FT, adding, “Some wealthy private entrepreneurs are losing confidence in China’s future. They feel unsafe, so they find ways to get their money out.”
Brad Setser, a former US Treasury official and an expert on global capital flows at the Council on Foreign Relations, estimated that capital flight from China is running at an annualized rate of about $516 billion as of 1Q24. This figure was even higher in the 3Q22, reaching almost $738 billion.
Don’t wait for a stock market crash, dedollarization, or CBDCs before securing your retirement with physical precious metals. Genesis Gold Group can help.
“The whole system of drug trafficking is being sustained by a network of clandestine [Chinese] money brokers,” said Giovanni Melillo, the chief prosecutor for Italy’s National Anti-Mafia and Terrorism Directorate. His office has been coordinating laundering probes across Italy this past year.
Previous cases of money laundering in the US involving Chinese nationals have raised serious questions about how much Beijing knows about these dark laundering networks. For instance, a recent Wall Street Journal report revealed that Chinese crime groups and drug traffickers used the Toronto-Dominion Bank to launder money from US fentanyl sales.
In mid-April, the House Select Committee on China revealed that the Chinese Communist Party used tax rebates to subsidize the manufacturing and exporting of fentanyl chemicals to overseas customers.
The biggest mystery here is why the Biden administration hasn’t taken a tougher stance on China while America’s fentanyl epidemic kills as many citizens each year as two Vietnam Wars.
Jack Smith’s 165-Page Motion Arguing Against Presidential Immunity in Trump J6 Case Unsealed
by The Post Millennial
District Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed on Wednesday a 165-page filing from Biden-Harris administration special counsel Jack Smith regarding upcoming presidential immunity proceedings in the January 6 case against Trump. Smith argued that Trump did not have presidential immunity for the crimes the DOJ alleges Trump committed, as “his scheme was…
Dr. Robert Malone Sounds Alarm on Self-Replicating RNA Vaccines: ‘Japan is the World’s Guinea Pig’
by RAIR Foundation
At the “Rescue the Republic” rally in Washington, D.C., Dr. Robert Malone delivered a sobering message about a new medical development that he reports could have dangerous consequences for global health freedom. Just returning from Tokyo, Dr. Malone warned of the imminent deployment of self-replicating RNA vaccines in Japan. These…
Launching the RIGHT REPORT to Fight the Real Enemies
by Publius
According to Ecclesiastes 10:2, A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right, but a fool’s heart to the left. The implications are stunning when we consider society today. That may not be the original intent of the verse but it clearly applies to the modern world. But what is…
Do You Want Your Prepper Bar Shipped to Your Home or Added to Your IRA?
by Sponsored Post
The massive shift of money being exchanged for physical precious metals started in 2022 with Central Banks across the globe breaking records. The frenzy caught on with large investment firms and financial institutions like BlackRock and JPMorgan in 2023. 2024 has been the year of regular citizens making the same…
No, Endorsing Kamala Harris for President Isn’t What Jesus Would Do
by The Federalist
Christians should reject the backward theology of teachers who twist the character of Christ to punish their political enemies. “Never Trump. This time Harris. Always Jesus.” These were the words not of Taylor Swift or Pete Buttigieg but of Ray Ortlund, a card-carrying member of “Big Eva,” in a recent…
The New Data on Illegal Alien Crime Is Shocking
by John R Lott Jr
(RealClearWire)—The new data on all the criminal noncitizens coming into the U.S. is shocking. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checks the background of illegal aliens they have in custody. But, the administration’s letter to Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) shows that as of July 21, 2024, ICE let 435,719…
Antony Blinken’s Op-Ed Got Obliterated in Real-Time
by Townhall
For some reason, Joe Biden has been seen as a foreign policy guru, despite everyone thinking he was a clown. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was apt in his observation, noting that Biden has been wrong on every major foreign policy initiative over the past 40 years. He’s been rolled…
4% of Haiti’s Entire Population Has Entered U.S. Under Biden-Harris – And That’s Not All
by Woke Spy
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been importing an astonishing number of third-world Haitians into the country. That’s right. The administration has been actively arranging and paying for Haitian “migrants” to fly into the U.S. More on this below, but first, we need to prepare the ground….
Meat Substitutes Still a Tiny Sliver of Us Meat Market
by Zero Hedge
Over the past few years, plant-based meat substitutes have come closer and closer to mimicking the real thing, with brands like Beyond Meat having even sussed out how to create fake meat that “bleeds”. But, as Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, after an initial boom, the company has rapidly come…
Box Office Bomb: Netflix Cancellations Explode After Co-Founder Gives Huge Donation to Kamala
by Red State
I admit it, I like Netflix. During the pandemic, when our Overlords here in California demanded we stay in our living rooms for two years, I watched countless terrible movies as well as some quality entertainment—it’s always hit or miss with the streamer. But I may soon vote with my…