Six Chinese citizens and two China-based pharmaceutical companies have been charged with allegedly selling and delivering chemical agents used to manufacture and cut fentanyl, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio announced on March 25.

A federal grand jury in Dayton, Ohio, indicted Zhao Hanson, Gao Yanpeng, Yi Xia, Jian Zhang, Wang Zhoalan, and Zhang Chunhai, as well as Shandong Believe Chemical Company and Shandong Ranhang Biotechnology.

The defendants were charged with “conspiring to manufacture, to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl mixture,” which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and up to life imprisonment, according to a Justice Department news release.

They were also charged with money laundering conspiracy, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors said the alleged conspiracies took place from around 2025 through March 2026, according to the indictment.

The two companies and Zhao faced a third charge of attempting to provide material support to Cártel del Golfo, also known as the Gulf Cartel. The U.S. State Department designated the Mexico-based cartel as a foreign terrorist organization in February 2025, saying that it was involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, human smuggling, and other crimes.

Prosecutors said the material support charge stems from allegations that the three defendants supplied chemical precursors and medetomidine to an individual who claimed to be a member of the Gulf Cartel, according to the attorney’s office.

Medetomidine, also known as “rhino tranq,” is a veterinary anesthetic drug that ranked in the top 10 substances mixed with fentanyl in 2024, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment. Other drugs on the list included xylazine, another veterinary tranquilizer, as well as heroin and cocaine.

Drug dealers often mix drugs with cutting agents, also known as adulterants, to stretch their supply and maximize profit. In some cases, they also add more powerful substances to amplify the drug’s potency.

According to the Attorney’s office, medetomidine can increase the yield of a single kilogram of fentanyl by up to 20 times and generate millions of doses for street-level distribution in the United States.

“This new indictment marks the first time in the Southern District of Ohio that we have brought charges for providing material support to a Mexican drug cartel designated as a foreign terrorist organization,” Dominick S. Gerace II, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said in a statement.

“We are going after the entire chain of supply for these deadly drugs, from Mexican cartels and Chinese pharmaceutical companies to the high-level distributors on our streets in the Southern District of Ohio.”

According to the indictment, Zhao was also charged with obstruction of justice, a fourth count.

The two Chinese companies and Zhao also allegedly directed drug traffickers to pay for precursors and cutting agents using cryptocurrency, sending funds to crypto wallets they controlled and those of other defendants, according to the indictment.

The digital money was subsequently “converted into foreign currency bound for international banks” in order to help the two Chinese companies “conceal the source of these illegal funds and prevent their seizure by the United States,” according to the indictment.

The Epoch Times was unable to contact the defendants’ lawyers for comment.

In an X post on March 24, FBI Director Patel called the indictments “historic” and attributed the results to a multi-agency investigation called “Operation Box Cutter” and to cooperation with China’s Ministry of Public Security.

Patel cited the same operation when announcing the indictments in Ohio in September 2025 against three Americans, 22 Chinese nationals, and four companies, who were accused of facilitating the flow of illicit cutting agents from China.

“The FBI is aggressively pursuing individuals and companies in China that are selling dangerous narcotics and working with terrorist organizations,” Jason Cromartie, FBI Cincinnati special agent in charge, said in a statement.

Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.), who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, thanked Patel and the FBI for their efforts in tackling the fentanyl crisis at its source, according to his March 25 X post.

“Fentanyl has killed more Americans than any war in a generation, and for years we watched Chinese companies supply the chemicals to make it while our government did almost nothing about it,” Harrigan wrote.