Category: zerohedge

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

For the second time this year, the UK is slashing the grants available to buyers of electric vehicles (EVs) as it looks to curb spending and targets less expensive models.

“Soaring demand for EVs leads to refocusing of grants on the most affordable zero-emission cars, making best use of taxpayer money,” the UK government said on Wednesday, announcing the changes to its EV incentive policies, the second major change in less than one year.

The grant for EVs is now slashed by 40 percent and limited to buyers of electric cars priced below $42,420 (£32,000). The grant is up to $1,988 (£1,500) for electric cars priced under £32,000, with currently around 20 models on the market, the UK government said today.

The previous grant for electric vehicles was up to $3,313 (£2,500) for cars priced under $46,390 (£35,000).  

The up to £2,500 grant was introduced in March 2021, when the UK government cut the grant from $3,976 (£3,000), and incurred the criticism of Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which said that it was “the wrong move at the wrong time.”

In its announcement today, the UK government said that the grant scheme “has been updated to target less expensive models, allowing the scheme’s funding to go further and to help more people make the switch to an electric vehicle (EV).”

“The market is charging ahead in the switch to electric vehicles. This, together with the increasing choice of new vehicles and growing demand from customers, means that we are refocusing our vehicle grants on the more affordable vehicles and reducing grant rates to allow more people to benefit, and enable taxpayers’ money to go further,” Transport Minister Trudy Harrison said.

SMMT criticized the move, with Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, saying, “Slashing the grants for electric vehicles once again is a blow to customers looking to make the switch and couldn’t come at a worse time, with inflation at a ten-year high and pandemic-related economic uncertainty looming large.”

Instead of cutting incentives, the government should double down on them, otherwise “UK drivers risk being left behind on the transition to zero-emission motoring,” Hawes said.

Billionaire venture capitalist investor Christian Angermayer had some harsh words for the world of social media this week.

Angermayer, who is the founder of Apeiron Investment Group, told Bloomberg this week that social media is “toxic to our brains”. 

Speaking at the Bloomberg Technology Summit, he also claimed that within two decades, society will have “found ways” to live with the technology – but, until then, the “adjustment period can be extremely devastating.”

Angermayer, also known for being a proponent of eating magic mushrooms, has said that psychedelic drugs could be “the best tool we have” to improve mental health.

He continued: “I do psychedelics twice a year in a country where it’s legal. They give me faith, they show me purpose, and they show you the importance of love.”

Recall, we wrote about Angermayer back in April of this year, calling him the billionaire who “finally understood bitcoin” after taking tripping on mushrooms. Angermayer took his first trip on psychedelics in 2015 before investing in companies that are in the space. A conversation with a neuroscientist at a dinner party is what turned him on to the idea of magic mushrooms, despite the fact that he doesn’t drink alcohol. “It was the single most meaningful thing I’ve ever done in my whole life, nothing really comes close,” he said of his first trip, which took place in the Caribbean. 

After the trip, he claimed he “finally understood bitcoin”. From there, it became a feedback loop of investing in the things he was passionate about while riding the crypto wave that has swollen over the last half decade. 

On his investing style, he said: “I just invest in what I’m very curious and passionate about,” he told Bloomberg. The report calls him the “German version of Chamath Palihapitiya” – though we’re sure that was far more of a compliment back in April this year than it is now…

According to Crunchbase, “Christian has created, co-founded and invested in numerous successful companies across a broad section of sectors. He has raised over EUR 1.5bn for his portfolio companies and has been involved in more than 40 successful IPO- and M&A-transactions either as an entrepreneur, investor or banker/advisor.”

“Christian’s family office holds stakes in various asset management companies with – together with his family office assets – in total approx. EUR 1bn assets under management.”

His bio continues:

“Today, merging his profound experience at the nexus of traditional financial services and technology, he is one of the most active and significant investors in European fintech companies with a special focus on crypto-currencies and blockchain-related business models. Other cutting-edge areas for investments Christian is currently most excited about are longevity and anti-aging technologies, aerospace technologies and new drugs for mental wellbeing and enhancement.”

Authored by Paul Joseph Watsion vis Summit News,

A French anti-mass migration activist was sexually assaulted by an African migrant who broke into her home and subjected her to a harrowing ordeal.

Thaïs d’Escufon, a former spokeswoman for the banned Generation Identity movement, recounted the attack to the Le Figaro newspaper.

The activist was making her way home in Lyon after a gym workout when she was accosted by the man, who told her he was Tunisian.

“The man surely stayed behind my back and rushed into the apartment as soon as I turned the key,” said d’Escufon, adding that the attacker took advantage of the fact she was wearing headphones.

The culprit took possession of d’Escufon’s keys and locked both in the house together before attempting to sexually assault her.

“He asks me if he has a chance with me, I tell him no. He wants to kiss me, but I struggled. He managed to brush my lips at one point. I begin crying, and I tell him to go. He told me to wait, that he’s going to ask me something, but I’m in a panic, and he holds my wrists. While holding my wrists, he makes me sit on the beanbag by the door, I tell him to go, and he tells me to suck him off. Panicked, I cry even more, I am terrified. He lets go, I jump up, I manage to open the door and push him out, he goes left, and I close it quickly behind me.”

The would-be rapist weirdly tried to charm d’Escufon by telling her she “had very French features” and was pretty. He also told her, “I know that in France, you think that all Arabs are evil, I am not like that, I swear before God.”

The man, who made sure to pick up his cigarette butts before he fled so as to not leave behind any evidence he had been there, is now being sought for prosecution on counts of “sexual assault, home invasion, and sexual harassment.”

“This is what thousands of French women go through every day. What happened to me is what I denounce and what I’m being censored for,” said d’Escufon, a reference to how the French government ordered the dissolution of Generation Identity last summer.

“Cases of sexual violence against women in France have been steadily climbing since the migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016. From 2017 to 2018, reports of rape increased by almost 17 percent,” reports ReMix News. “The French Interior Ministry statistics service SSMI published a report last year which noted that cases of sexual violence had increased by 12 percent in 2019 compared to the previous year.”

“All French regions have experienced increases in the number of rapes, assaults, and sexual harassment recorded by the security forces in 2019, notably Corsica, Centre-Val-de-Loire, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, and Nouvelle-Aquitaine,” the report said.

France is set to hold a presidential election in April next year where identity and mass migration will take center stage.

One of President Emmanuel Macron’s closest challengers, Eric Zemmour, has taken a vehemently strong stance on immigration, asserting in his opening campaign speech that he plans to oversee the “reconquest of the greatest country in the world.”

A poll carried out by Harris Interactive back in October found that the majority of French citizens thought “white and Christian populations are being threatened with extinction (via) Muslim immigration.”

*  *  *

Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behinds the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

The Johnson government has had an uncanny ability to weather political storms since taking power back in 2019.

The number of scandals and controversies the prime minister and his party have experienced which would have brought most other leaders tumbling down is quite incredible – especially when considering that up until very recently, the tories have been comfortably and consistently ahead in the polls.

However, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong points out, signs of this luck beginning to run out have started to show. The latest revelations regarding non-covid regulation conforming gatherings and parties have made their presence felt in the polls, with Labour pulling ahead in a series of voting intention surveys over the last few days. While these snapshots of public sentiment will probably not concern the prime minister too much at the moment, another metric may be of more concern.

As a YouGov time series shows, government approval among those who voted Conservative in 2019 has dropped dramatically in December.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Now down at 40 percent, the lowest of Johnson’s time in office, the disapproval rate is now also higher for the first time, at 43 percent. Adding to the pressure, a senior tory, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, has warned that a leadership challenge in the new year “has got to be on the cards” if the prime minister is unable to make changes to his approach.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

• The EU is reconsidering its position on extending long-term natural gas contracts. 

• Russia has maintained that the contracts are beneficial for Europe and moving away from them would be a mistake.

• Russia even went as far as suggesting that Europe’s current energy crisis is its own fault.

The European Union (EU) is reportedly reconsidering its position on extending long-term natural gas contracts beyond 2049 as part of reforms in its natural gas market to meet the net-zero by 2050 goal.   Should the European Commission’s proposal be endorsed by EU heads of state and government this week, putting a timeline to the end of long-term gas contracts would open another rift with Russia, which provides one-third of Europe’s gas supply via pipelines under long-term deals. 

The measure, if approved by the EU, would run against Russia’s position that long-term deals are beneficial for Europe and moving away from them and increasing reliance on liquefied natural gas (LNG) was and will be a mistake. 

Some EU member states are wary of what they perceive as Moscow using gas as a political tool to influence geopolitics. 

However, as it stands, especially with the low levels of gas in storage and surging gas and energy prices, supply from Russia and Russia’s willingness to provide additional volumes to Europe on top of its contractual commitments has been and will be a key driver of the gas market and prices at European hubs this winter. 

Despite the current crisis, the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, is reportedly drafting plans to quit long-term gas supply contracts by 2049. At the same time, it plans to enhance the security of its gas supply, Bloomberg reported this week, citing a draft document prepared by the Commission. 

The EU has struggled with insufficient gas supply for months now, and the situation is not about to change as Russia continues to supply precisely what it had committed to deliver under long-term contracts. This has earned it accusations of using gas as a political weapon and increased the EU’s determination to reduce its reliance on Russian gas.

Russia, for its part, denies any accusations about using gas for geopolitics and reaffirms it supplies the volumes of gas to its customers in Europe as per long-term contracts. 

And it says Europe’s decisions to move away from long-term deals are one of the reasons for the current gas crisis. 

“[T]he practices of our European partners [are to blame]. These practices have reaffirmed that, properly speaking, they have made mistakes. We were talking with the former European Commission; all of its activities were aimed at curtailing the so-called long-term contracts and at transitioning to gas exchange trading,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in early October during a meeting to discuss Russia’s energy industry. 

“It turned out – and today this is absolutely obvious – that this policy is erroneous, erroneous for the reason that it fails to take into account the gas market specifics dependent on a large number of uncertainty factors,” Putin said, per the Kremlin’s website, just as Europe’s gas prices hit record highs. 

Weather and Russian gas flows will be the drivers of Europe’s gas market and prices this winter. Limited supply from Russia—which is sending all the gas volumes per the long-term contracts but is not shipping too much extra supply—and a cold winter could leave European gas storage at very low levels, or even deplete the storage sites, analysts say. 

With the potential in-service date for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline still in limbo, the EU is scrambling to ensure both its supply and to possibly reduce, in the future, its dependence on Russia. 

The leaders of the European Union member states are also expected to discuss this week a new system to jointly buy natural gas in order to create strategic reserves to protect the countries and consumers from gas shortages and soaring energy prices.

Despite the green agenda of the EU, gas will still play an important role in the energy markets on the continent. 

At the onset of the gas and electricity crisis in Europe this autumn, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said: 

“The links between electricity and gas markets are not going to go away anytime soon. Gas remains an important tool for balancing electricity markets in many regions today.”  

Authored by CJ Hopkina via ConsentFactory.org,

And so, as 2021 goose-steps toward its fanatical finish, it is time for my traditional year-end wrap-up. It’s “The Year of the Ox” in the Chinese zodiac, but I’m christening it “The Year of the New Normal Fascist.”

And what a phenomenally fascist year it has been!

I’m not talking amateur fascism. I am talking professional Class-A fascism. Government and corporate sanctified fascism. Bug-eyed, spittle-flecked, hate-drunk fascism. I’m talking mobs of New Normal fascists shrieking hatred and threats at “the Unvaccinated” as they are dragged off “Vaccinated Only” trains, painting Nazi-era messages on their windows of their stores, leaders of government fomenting mass hatred, TV commentators literally quoting sadistic Nazi SS doctors, leftists going full-fascist on Facebook, concentration camps, Goebbelsian propaganda, censorship of dissent … the whole nine yards.

Here in Europe, things are particularly fascist. One by one, New Normal countries are rolling out social-segregation systems, ordering “lockdowns” of “the Unvaccinated,” and otherwise persecuting those who refuse to conform to official New Normal ideology. Austria has made “vaccinations” mandatory. Germany is about to follow suit. “Covid passes” have been approved in the UK. Greece is fining “Unvaccinated” pensioners by reducing the amount of their state-pension payments. Swedes are “chipping” themselves. And so on.

In New Normal Germany, “the Unvaccinated” are under de facto house arrest. We are banned from society. We are banned from traveling. We are banned from protesting. Our writings are censored. We’re demonized and dehumanized by the New Normal government, the state and corporate media, and the New Normal masses on a daily basis. New Normal goon squads roam the streets, brutalizing pensioners, raiding barber shops, checking “papers,” measuring social distances, literally, as in with measuring sticks. The Gestapo even arrested Santa Claus for not wearing a mask at a Christmas market. In the schools, fascist New Normal teachers ritually humiliate “Unvaccinated” children, forcing them to stand in front of the class and justify their “Unvaccinated” status, while the “Vaccinated” children and their parents are applauded, like some New Normal version of the Hitler Youth. When New Normal Germany’s new Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced that, “for my government there are no more red lines as far as doing what needs to be done,” apparently he wasn’t joking. It’s only a matter of time until he orders New Normal Propaganda Minister Karl Lauterbach to make his big Sportpalast speech, where he will ask the New Normals if they want “total war” … and I think you know the rest of this story.

But this isn’t just a story about New Normal Germany, or New Normal Europe, or New Normal Australia. And it isn’t just a story about mass hysteria, or an “overreaction” to a corona virus. The “New Normal” is a global GloboCap co-production, a multi-trillion-dollar co-production, which has been in development for quite some time, and this year has gone exactly to script.

Given all the drama over the past 12 months, it’s easy to forget that the year began with the occupation of Washington DC by thousands of US (i.e., GloboCap) forces in the wake of the “Terrorist Assault on the Capitol” (a/k/a the “January 6 Insurrection,” or the “Attempted Coup,” or some such nonsense) carried out by a few hundred totally unarmed Donald Trump supporters, who were allegedly intent on “overthrowing the government” and “destroying Democracy” with … well, their bare hands.

This was the long-awaited “Return to Normal” spectacle that had been in the pipeline for the previous four years, the public humiliation of the Unauthorized President (and the “populists” who put him in office) and the GloboCap show of force that followed. Here’s how I described it back in January:

“In other words, GloboCap is teaching us a lesson. I don’t know how much clearer they could make it. They just installed a new puppet president, who can’t even simulate mental acuity, in a locked-down, military-guarded ceremony which no one was allowed to attend, except for a few members of the ruling classes. They got some epigone of Albert Speer to convert the Mall (where the public normally gathers) into a ‘field of flags,’ symbolizing ‘unity.’ They even did the Nazi Lichtdom thing. To hammer the point home, they got Lady Gaga to dress up as a Hunger Games character with a ‘Mockingjay’ brooch and sing the National Anthem. They broadcast this spectacle to the entire world.”

As I assume is obvious to everyone by now, the “Return to Normal” was a “Return to the New Normal,” which the global-capitalist ruling establishment was already imposing on the entire world. The message couldn’t possibly be clearer. As Arnold Schwarzenegger succinctly put it, the message is, “screw your freedom.” The message is, shut up and toe the fucking line. The message is, show me your fucking papers. Use the fucking pronouns. Eat the fucking bugs. Get the fucking “vaccinations.” Do not fucking ask us “how many.” The answer is, “as many as we fucking tell you.”

The message is, there will be no more unauthorized presidents, no more leaving the European Union, no more “populist” rebellions against the global hegemony of global-capitalism and its soul-crushing, valueless “woke” ideology. GloboCap is done playing grab-ass. They announced that back in March of 2020. They informed us in unmistakable terms that our lives were about to change, forever. They branded and advertised this change as “the New Normal,” in case we were … you know, cognitively challenged. They did not hide it. They wanted us to understand exactly what was coming, a global-capitalist version of totalitarianism, in which we will all be happy little fascist “consumers” showing each other our “compliance certificates” in order to be allowed to live our lives.

I don’t need to review the entire year in detail. You remember the highlights … the roll-out of the “safe and effective” miracle “vaccines” that don’t keep you from catching or spreading the virus, and which have killed and injured thousands of people, but which you now have to get every three or four months to be allowed to work or go to a restaurant; the roll-out of the global social-segregation/digital compliance-certificate system that makes absolutely no medical sense, but which the “vaccines” were designed to force us into; The Criminalization of Dissent; The Manufacturing of “Reality”; The Propaganda War; The Covidian Cult; the launch of The Great New Normal Purge; the whole Pathologized Totalitarianism package.

I’d like to end on an optimistic note, because, Jesus, this fascism business is depressing. So I’ll just mention that, as you have probably noticed, more and more people are now “waking up,” or relocating their intestinal fortitude, and finally speaking out against “vaccine” mandates, and “vaccination passes,” and social segregation, and all the rest of the fascist New Normal program. I intend to encourage this “awakening” vociferously. I hope that those — and you know who you are — who have been reporting the facts and opposing the New Normal, and have been ridiculed, demonized, gaslighted, censored, slandered, threatened, and otherwise abused, on a daily basis for 21 months, as our more “prominent” colleagues — and you know who you are — sat by in silence, or took part in the Hate Fest, will join me in applauding and welcoming these “prominent” colleagues to the fight … finally.

Oh, and, if you’re one of those “prominent” colleagues and you start beating your chest and sounding off like you’ve just rediscovered investigative journalism and are now leading the charge against the New Normal for your YouTube viewers or your Substack readers, please understand if we get a little cranky. Speaking for myself, yes, it’s been a bit stressful, doing your job and taking the shit for you out here in the trenches for the past 21 months. Not to mention how it has virtually killed my comedy … and I’m supposed to be a political satirist.

But there I go, getting all “angry” again … whatever. As the doctor said, “buy the ticket, take the ride.” And it’s the season of joy, love, and forgiveness, and publicly crucifying dissidents, and paranoia, and mass hysteria, and persecuting “Unvaccinated” relatives, and, OK, I might have had one too many.

Happy holidays to one and all, except, of course, to the New Normal fascists, especially the ones that are torturing the children. God, forgive me, but I hope they fucking choke.

Every year, Google reveals its biggest trending search queries over the previous twelve months.

Looking at all searches in the United States compared to last year, Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes that a picture of the people and the topics that were in our thoughts in 2021 emerges.

While 2020’s trending searches were dominated by the coronavirus (and the election, of course), 2021’s results didn’t show signs of an increase in attention for the pandemic, with other major events and people-driven news stories taking center stage.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Away from the more serious and impactful side of the year, Bernie Sanders’ mittens took the internet by storm after an image of him went viral.

On our TV screens, the Netflix series Squid Game gained the most traction, followed by Bridgerton and WandaVision.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The US Navy tested an advanced laser weapon near Yemen’s coast in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, destroying a floating target.

The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet said the amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland “conducted a high-energy laser weapon system demonstration.” In 2020, the Portland tested the same weapon and successfully took down an aerial drone.

The Navy statement described that “During the demonstration, the Solid State Laser – Technology Maturation Laser Weapons System Demonstrator (LWSD) Mark 2 MOD 0 aboard Portland successfully engaged a static surface training target. Portland previously tested the LWSD in May 2020 when it successfully disabled a small unmanned aerial system while operating in the Pacific Ocean.”

The US Navy chose the Portland to host and experiment with laser weapons in 2018. Media reports said the laser could be used to target drone boats that have been used by Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea since the test was conducted in the region.

Above: “Amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland (LPD 27) conducts a high-energy laser weapon system demonstration on a static surface training target, Dec. 14, while sailing in the Gulf of Aden,” the Fifth Fleet statement said.

With US support, Saudi Arabia’s navy has been enforcing a blockade on Yemen since Riyadh intervened in the country’s civil war back in 2015. The Houthis have attacked Saudi warships and tankers since the war started.

The Saudi-led war in Yemen has caused widespread disease and mass starvation. The UN recently said by the end of this year, 377,000 people will have died in the Yemen war. President Biden is still supporting the war despite his earlier vows to end support for Riyadh’s “offensive” operations in Yemen.

Russian officials are comparing the West’s treatment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to cannibalism, saying Washington and London’s purpose in this instance is the “annihilation of an individual”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described in her latest press briefing that covered commentary on the Assange extradition trial that “The actions taken by our Western partners over the past few years smack of cannibalism.” The comparison suggested that the West is ‘eating its own’ who stand for justice, all while Western nations claim to champions of justice and equal rights. “This is no longer about double standards or about trampling the principles and ideals [the West claims to champion],” the Kremlin official added.

The statement explained, “All this is not about some double standards or defiance of lofty principles and ideals. It’s about the annihilation of an individual, revenge for his stance, for his courage and for the fact that he deemed it necessary, apparently aware of the potential risks, to share with the world some crucial information that shed light on the lies and deceit committed by a number of states.”

The Kremlin’s lashing out came amid new revelations that Assange suffered a “mini-stroke” while confined at Belmarsh prison in London, and amid continuing reports of his extremely frail health, which his Fiancée Stella Moris has explained is taking a heavy toll mentally. She described days ago that the prior stroke was likely due to the extreme stress of the ongoing US extradition attempts. 

Zakharova addressed this in her Wednesday statement: “Everybody can see that this man is being annihilated. He looks like two different people. Everybody can see his current condition, not to mention the campaign of victimization the champions of democracy have organized against him,” she added.

Amnesty International: “The fact that the US has reserved the right to change its mind (on assurances) at any time, means that these assurances are not worth the paper they are written on” @amnesty #FreeAssangeNOWhttps://t.co/HljmTwk0wi

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 16, 2021

Most recently, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales sided with the US in upholding the Justice Department’s prior appeal filed to keep the extradition proceedings alive.

Pundits and supporters of WikiLeaks have pointed out that short of a quick extradition to the US – a scenario yet to materialize in Washington’s favor – the DOJ’s strategy and that of its Western intelligence allies is likely to ensure Assange waste’s away in confinement while drawing out the legal process and endless appeals as long as possible.

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. State Department is offering up to $35 million for information that could lead to the arrests of seven drug dealers from China and Mexico, in an effort to curb fentanyl and other illicit drugs from flooding into the United States.

The announcement came right after President Joe Biden on Dec. 15 signed two new executive orders, declaring international drug trafficking a national emergency and establishing a U.S. council on transnational organized crime to unite six agencies to counter the illicit drug trade. The Department will award up to $5 million for information on each of the seven drug traffickers.

One of the seven individuals named was Chinese national Yip Chuen Fat, who the Justice Department has recognized as “one of the world’s largest alleged anabolic steroid producers.”

Prosecutors announced federal charges against Yip on Tuesday. The 68-year-old, believed to be from the Chinese city of Wuhan, was slapped with five drug crimes charges in 2018, including manufacturing anabolic steroids and fentanyl precursors for export to the United States, according to the Justice Department.

Court documents identified him as the owner of a chemical manufacturing company called Yuancheng (YC) Group, which is allegedly responsible for producing and distributing around $280 million worth of anabolic steroids from mainland China and Hong Kong. About one-fifth of the amount was shipped to the United States over a five-year period, prosecutors said.

The YC Group allegedly shipped the contraband to all 50 U.S. states through cargo vessels and commercial air carriers such as the U.S. Postal Service, concealing shipments in food and other product packagings.

In November, prosecutors obtained a warrant to seize more than 49.1 bitcoin, worth $2.3 million, from a crypto wallet that traced back to Yip. He allegedly uses virtual currencies, including Bitcoin, to conduct his business.

Over 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses during the 12-month period ending April, a jump of 28.5 percent from last year, according to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month. Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, a drug 100 times more potent than morphine, accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total.

Despite Beijing banning fentanyl and its analogs in 2019, China has remained the primary source of illicit fentanyl in the United States.

To circumvent regulations, Chinese traffickers have increasingly taken to exporting precursors to Mexican cartels, who would produce the drug and smuggle it across the border, a tactic Yip’s company has allegedly adopted.

The YC Group had once agreed to a scheme to ship 24 kilograms of 4-ANPP, a precursor to fentanyl, to the United States from China, which would then be smuggled to Mexico to make fentanyl and brought back into the United States.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has listed Yip as one of its top 10 most wanted fugitives.

Yip’s alleged criminal activities “have caught up with him,” DEA’s special agent in charge Eduardo Chávez said.

“The Justice Department will pursue drug defendants to the furthest reaches of the globe if that’s what it takes to stem the tide of the drug epidemic,” said U.S. attorney Chad Meacham in a statement.

Zheng Fujing and Zheng Guanghua, father and son from China’s Shanghai, face a 43-count indictment announced in 2018 for making and shipping fentanyl and 250 other deadly substances to at least 25 countries. The drugs the Zhengs sold allegedly led to the overdose deaths of two people in Ohio.