Reporters and editors from six bureaus in North America and Asia teamed up for this investigation into the global supply chain of fentanyl and its rise to become one of the world’s deadliest and most profitable narcotics. The narrative weaves together on-the-ground reportage, information from hundreds of pages of court documents and government reports and dozens of interviews – including the first (and still only) media interview with one of the world’s most-wanted accused kingpins himself – to show how black-market businessmen and rogue chemists have transformed the international drug trade, upended global policing, and left behind a public health catastrophe in their wake. The story gives readers an exclusive, behind the scenes look into how investigators built what has become one of the most important and far-reaching attempts to prosecute the profit-seekers fueling the devastating opioid epidemic.
