NEW YORK (Diya TV) — Two Indian chemical companies have been indicted for importing fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States and Mexico, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on January 6. The Gujarat-based companies, Athos Chemicals, and Raxuter Chemicals, face charges in Brooklyn federal court for distributing the ingredients used to produce fentanyl and conspiring to import them.
Raxuter’s senior executive, Bhavesh Lathiya, 36, has also been accused of smuggling and introducing misbranded drugs into U.S. interstate commerce. Lathiya was arrested on January 4 in New York and was detained pending trial since prosecutors labeled him a flight risk and a threat to the community.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the department is focused on dismantling fentanyl trafficking networks. “The Justice Department is targeting every link in fentanyl trafficking supply chains that too often end in tragedy in the United States,” Garland said.
Prosecutors claim that since February 2024, both companies knowingly provided precursor chemicals, among them 1-boc-4-piperidone, and actively tried to hide their actions with false customs forms and mislabeled packages. One of the charges states that Lathiya agreed to sell 20 kilograms of the chemical to an undercover agent, implying that she sent a shipment mislabeled as an antacid.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is hundreds of times more potent than heroin and morphine, and it has fueled a devastating opioid crisis in the U.S. In 2022, opioids accounted for around 82,000 U.S. deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If convicted, Lathiya faces up to 53 years in prison.
