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The State Department is offering up to a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest, conviction or location of Chinese national Zhang Jian who is accused of selling fentanyl and leading the transnational criminal Zhang Drug Trafficking Organization, the department announced Monday.
Authorities discovered Zhang's fentanyl trafficking organization after the overdose death of Bailey Henke, 18, in Grand Forks, North Dakota in January 2015, the Associated Press reported. The Treasury Department sanctioned him and his biotechnical company in 2018 to stop him from conducting business with U.S. citizens.
He is one of a number of Chinese and Canadian nationals out of over 30 people accused of distributing fentanyl.
During 2013 through 2016, with Zhang as the "principal leader and organizer," his criminal organization "imported and distributed controlled substances and their analogues into" the U.S., the State Department said. These actions led to the overdose deaths of four Americans, including Henke, in North Dakota as well as Oregon, New Jersey and North Carolina "and serious bodily injuries to five other Americans," according to the State Department.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below:
Zhang is also known as "Hong Kong Zaron." The 2018 sanctions against him and his company was the first time the department had sanctioned an alleged fentanyl trafficker.
The Justice Department said its narcotics reward programs have led to the capture of more than 75 people since 1986. More than $135 million has been paid out since that time.
The investigation known as "Operation Denial" began after Henke was found dead inside an apartment building.
Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin and can be lethal even in small amounts. It's used legally during surgeries and to treat people with chronic, severe pain, such as cancer patients. Illicit fentanyl is often laced with other dangerous drugs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that synthetic opioid-involved death rates increased by over 15 percent from 2018 to 2019 and accounted for nearly 73 percent of all opioid-involved deaths in 2019, most of which were driven by fentanyl overdoses. Music superstar Prince died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl in 2016.
The majority of illicit fentanyl is manufactured in China, according to federal officials.
Another man accused of playing a major role in the ring, Colombian national Daniel Vivas Ceron, sold the drugs while serving time in a medium-security prison in Quebec for drug-smuggling charges. He arranged co-conspirators to conduct transactions in Canada and China through money wires, bank wires, bank deposits and the use of virtual currency systems, court documents show.
Vivas Ceron pleaded guilty in 2019 to three counts and faces a sentence of life in prison.
