The Department of Justice building in Washington on March 28, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
A Chinese national was indicted in El Paso, Texas, on Friday for allegedly selling pill press equipment used to make counterfeit pills that are laced with fentanyl, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The DOJ stated that Xaiofei Chen was charged by a federal grand jury in the Western District of Texas with one count of conspiracy to distribute a tableting machine used to make controlled substance and one count of conspiracy to distribute dies designed to reproduce trademarks. Chen was arrested at a Las Vegas trade show on Oct. 29.
Chen was allegedly employed by a Chinese-based company that sold die molds and equipment.
Prosecutors said the pill press machines sold by Chen were used "with molds, stamps or dies mimicking commonly prescribed controlled substances" to produce counterfeit pills that closely resemble pharmaceutical drugs. These counterfeit pills were laced with illicit drugs like fentanyl.
Chen was also accused of trying to circumvent Drug Enforcement Administration disclosure requirements by dismantling equipment and shipping parts in separate packages into the United States, the DOJ stated.
She allegedly mislabeled the packages to conceal the illicit equipment they contained, which included counterfeit dies designed to mimic a common prescription drug but were used to make fake opioid pills.
"The fentanyl epidemic has taken hundreds of thousands of American lives, and this case reflects the department's unwavering commitment to prosecuting every level of the deadly fentanyl supply chain," Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the DOJ's Civil Division, said in a statement.
"The department will continue to protect Americans by prosecuting those involved in the unlawful sale of parts and equipment that can be used to manufacture counterfeit pills," Boynton said.
Illicit fentanyl has become the leading cause of death for people aged between 18 and 49 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than 107,000 deaths were caused by a drug overdose in 2023, according to the CDC.
Authorities have found in recent years that more than half of the counterfeit pills contained a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl, and these pills often resemble oxycodone pills or Xanax, the CDC stated.
Chen faces a maximum penalty of four years in prison and a $250,000 fine if found guilty. It could not be established whether she had been assigned an attorney at this time.
In recent days, the DOJ also announced charges against three foreign nationals who have been extradited to the United States for allegedly trafficking Chinese fentanyl precursors and instructing traffickers on how to smuggle the drugs into the United States.