Why Chinese Fentanyl Factories Are Making Peptides Now

Imani Moise (0:05)

If a chemical exists, there's a good chance that a factory in China can make it, and sell it for less than almost anyone else.

Patricia Kowsmann (0:13)

Now there are tons of like super legit Chinese chemical producers.

Imani Moise (0:18)

That's our colleague Patricia Kowsmann. She's based in Singapore.

Patricia Kowsmann (0:21)

And then there's like a whole layer of underground ones.

Imani Moise (0:26)

So when you say underground, what type of products were they selling?

Patricia Kowsmann (0:30)

These Chinese chemical producers, they are the big providers of fentanyl ingredients, which of course became a big issue in the US.

SPEAKER_3 (0:41)

We are in the midst of the worst drug crisis in US history.

SPEAKER_4 (0:45)

The drug is fentanyl.

SPEAKER_5 (0:46)

Fentanyl is a highly potent opioid. It's at least 50 times more potent than heroin.

SPEAKER_3 (0:51)

The synthetic drug fentanyl has been having and is having a devastating effect on our communities all across these United States.

Imani Moise (0:59)

Today, fentanyl continues to be the leading cause of overdose deaths in America. According to the Government Accountability Office, there were almost 50,000 deaths from synthetic opioids in 2024 alone.

For almost a decade, the US government has been trying to crack down on Chinese companies that produce the raw ingredients that eventually get turned into fentanyl. They're called fentanyl precursors.

Patricia Kowsmann (1:21)

This Chinese fentanyl precursor producers, they basically sold this to drug cartels who put together these ingredients, which the end result was the fentanyl, and then those were sold in the market.

Imani Moise (1:35)

Chinese precursor suppliers have been making tons of money from the illegal drug trade. But with a recent crackdown in China, these manufacturers have started entering into a different market, a market that's exploding across the US.

Patricia Kowsmann (1:48)

So they kind of pivot to what is the next big thing, and right now the next big thing is peptides.

Imani Moise (2:00)

So what went through your mind when you connected these dots?

Patricia Kowsmann (2:02)

Of course, these Chinese producers that have sold fentanyl precursors are not telling these people, by the way, I sold fentanyl precursors, and here's a peptide for you. But behind it, you have these companies that have sold fentanyl precursors to drug cartels.

And the question that I had was, do people really know who they're buying from? Do they even really know what they are buying?

Imani Moise (2:33)

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Imani Moise. It's Wednesday, October 7th.

Coming up on the show, the Chinese company is pivoting from fentanyl ingredients to peptides.

SPEAKER_6 (3:02)

This episode of The Journal is presented to you by Accenture. Behind this podcast and the music you listen to, Spotify has a sophisticated advertising business. Accenture is deeply imbedded in that business, working with Spotify to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, building, maintaining, and optimizing. Accenture finds the friction and builds the systems that make things run smoother and faster. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at accenture.com/spotify.

Imani Moise (3:38)

The chemical industry in China is the biggest in the world. There, factories have the capacity to make pretty much any kind of drug imaginable.

One particular company that Patricia looked into is called Anri Rinchen.

Patricia Kowsmann (3:51)

They're a chemistry company. They sell chemicals that, put together, will create a drug.

And they sell some drugs that could be in final form. Think of them as a lab that will produce whatever is in demand outside.

Imani Moise (4:09)

Anri Rinchen never responded to Patricia's request for comment. But there's a website that says the company was founded in 2015, with a factory northwest of Shanghai.

Okay, so I think now is a good time to look at the website. The site seems pretty user-friendly, and it's in English. Let's talk about the pictures. What do you see in the pictures?

Patricia Kowsmann (4:32)

Completely random products that look like just pure chemistry like substances that we wouldn't absolutely know what they mean unless you know what you're looking for. There's a little dishes with white powder. There is some yellow powder on a dish, and there's a liquid in one of those kind of lab flasks.

And if you scroll down a little bit, what you see is names of the products that they're selling that to us means nothing. It's like very complicated. A lot of them have numbers rather than names.

Imani Moise (5:10)

Across the site, there's clickable icons with colored powders and crystals and decorative ceramic dishes. They have labels like ivermectin, gabapentin, and something called metanitazine.