During years of on-the-ground investigations into Mexico’s drug trade, I’ve come to appreciate the crucial, yet often overlooked, role that brokers play. So when a Chinese fentanyl broker known as Brother Wang was recaptured and extradited to the United States this week, my eyes got wide.
Zhi Dong Zhang, alias “Brother Wang,” was not just any alleged drug trafficker. He was one of the all-important intermediaries that connect the legal sector of chemical precursor suppliers and illicit drug production in Mexico.
As my colleague Victoria Dittmar and I poured through dozens of US court documents to learn more, a clearer picture started to form. It backed up what we had found over several years of investigating synthetic drug production and speaking with traffickers on the ground in hotspots like Michoacán. Despite rarely being the target of security forces, brokers play a key role in powering this illicit trade.
Prosecutors accused Zhang of being the lynchpin of a vast global supply chain, leveraging his contacts in Asia to acquire precursor chemicals that would be sent to criminal actors in Mexico to produce synthetic drugs that he would later help sell to buyers in the United States.
His transnational drug trafficking network was so sophisticated that authorities allege he managed to maintain ties with both the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG), one-time rivals that have now formed an unlikely alliance.
While his arrest is almost certain to disrupt the flow of precursor chemicals and synthetic drugs for those networks, we know it likely won’t be for long. If there is one thing I can be sure of after years of covering organized crime groups in Mexico, it is their ability to adapt.
