U.S. Missile Strike on Alleged Narco-Boat Tied to Maduro and Ohio Indictment of Chinese Firms Signal Dramatic Escalation in War on Fentanyl

From Maduro’s Venezuela to Chinese precursor companies, the administration widens its whole-of-government crackdown on synthetic drugs.

WASHINGTON — The United States has dramatically escalated its war on fentanyl traffickers this week, with a missile strike on a suspected Venezuelan narco-vessel and a sweeping indictment naming numerous Chinese nationals, chemical precursor companies, and dealers in Ohio.

The Justice Department on Wednesday unveiled an Ohio grand jury indictment charging four China-based chemical companies, 22 Chinese nationals, and three U.S. defendants in a scheme that allegedly pumped potent cutting agents—including Schedule I nitazenes—into southern Ohio’s fentanyl market. The action landed as the administration pressed forward with its “whole-of-government” offensive on synthetic-drug supply lines and newly terror-designated cartels, including a high-profile military strike just hours earlier on a vessel Washington linked to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.

In an interview before this week’s U.S. government strikes on fentanyl networks, Derek Maltz, the recently retired DEA chief, told The Bureau that chemicals like nitazenes are amplifying the existing threat from Chinese-supplied fentanyl, which he and many U.S. experts view as an intentional, war-like attack from Chinese state-linked networks aligned with Latin cartels.

“We’re getting crushed with carfentanil, xylazine, etizolam, isotonitazene—all those different new psychoactive substances which are coming out of China. So it's just another phase of the attack,” Maltz said. “I believe that the Chinese criminal networks, Chinese Communist Party, have developed an innovative strategy, long-term strategy, to destabilize and destroy American families and communities using synthetic drugs, operating under the radar from this ongoing drug addiction crisis in America.”

Maltz also pointed to Canada’s failure to cooperate with the DEA on investigations into a massive superlab in British Columbia, which some U.S. sources said contributed to President Trump’s decision earlier this year to levy a 35 percent tariff on Canadian goods. In announcing that tariff, a White House statement warned: “Mexican cartels are increasingly operating fentanyl- and nitazene-synthesis labs in Canada.”

On Tuesday, the administration took its most kinetic step yet: a precision strike from international waters in the Caribbean that destroyed a suspected narco-vessel from Venezuela, killing 11 alleged members of the Tren de Aragua. Washington has accused the gang of operating under President Nicolás Maduro, who U.S. officials say is intentionally trafficking cocaine laced with fentanyl into the United States in concert with the Sinaloa cartel.

President Donald Trump announced the strike from the White House—remarkably, in near real time—saying, “We just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat.”

Footage released by the Pentagon showed an explosive strike eerily reminiscent of drone attacks on terrorist vehicles in the Middle East—only this time, the target was described as a narco-terror vessel tied to the Maduro regime. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said more such operations could follow, adding on Fox: “We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua … trying to poison our country with illicit drugs.”

Caracas has disputed the strike, and analysts are already debating its legal basis under U.S. and international law.

Before the strike, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told Fox that if cartels threatened U.S. forces, the administration would “take [them] on,” explicitly suggesting military force outside the United States.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi framed the Ohio prosecution as part of a broader push to “dismantle the international pipelines that bring deadly drugs and precursor to our shores,” vowing “swift, complete justice” for actors in China shipping “poison to our citizens.” FBI Director Kash Patel called it a “first-of-its-kind international operation,” saying agents had already seized enough fentanyl powder “to kill 70 million Americans” and pills sufficient “to kill another 270,000.”

Attacking new chemical precursors and lethal narcotics

A superseding indictment in the Southern District of Ohio alleges that, since at least 2022, Tipp City resident Eric Michael Payne bought kilogram shipments of cutting agents from China-based vendors purporting to be pharmacies or chemical companies, then mixed and resold those agents—at times directly with fentanyl—for street distribution in southern Ohio. Two alleged U.S. co-conspirators are named: AuriYon Tresean Rayford, 24, of Tipp City, and Ciandrea Bryne Davis, 39, of Atlanta.

Prosecutors say the Chinese companies openly marketed “protonitazene” and “metonitazene”—Schedule I nitazenes with estimated potencies roughly 100 and 200 times morphine—and pushed veterinary agents such as medetomidine and xylazine as “cut.” Payments flowed via cryptocurrency to wallets controlled by overseas brokers, then through layered accounts to foreign banks. The filing also details sales of tablet presses and other equipment to facilitate fentanyl cutting and pill-making.

Charged companies are Guangzhou Tengyue Chemical Co., Ltd.; Guangzhou Wanjiang Biotechnology Co., Ltd.; Hebei Hongjun New Material Technology Co., Ltd.; and Hebei Feilaimi Technology Co., Ltd. Named individual brokers include Xiaojun Huang and Zhanpeng Huang, who Treasury simultaneously sanctioned under counternarcotics authorities.

Counts include conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl mixture, possession with intent to distribute, maintaining a drug-involved premises, evidence tampering, and international money-laundering conspiracy. Payne and Rayford made initial appearances Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.

Minutes after DOJ’s announcement, the Treasury Department rolled out sanctions on Guangzhou Tengyue and representatives Xiaojun Huang and Zhanpeng Huang, underscoring a synchronized law-enforcement and financial-pressure playbook against China-based suppliers feeding U.S. overdose deaths.

That campaign has widened in 2025: In February, the State Department —implementing Executive Order 14157 — designated eight “international cartels and transnational criminal organizations,” including CJNG, Sinaloa, and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. The move unlocked material-support charges and expanded sanctions. In May, DOJ brought the first material-support-to-terrorism case tied to CJNG, alleging grenade supply and smuggling.

Dayton sits at the junction of Interstates 70 and 75—a central distribution hub for the Midwest—suggesting the new indictment is aimed at severing Chinese cutting-agent pipelines that turn kilogram-scale fentanyl into mass-market pills bound for American communities.