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DEA arrests Chinese chemist linked to deadly 'spice' street drug

Since 2014, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has seized 19 tons of packaged spice and raw materials that could have yielded hundreds of millions of dollars in narcotics sales.

By Elizabeth Shim

MILWAUKEE, May 29 (UPI) -- China's drug labs are the source of a deadly synthetic chemical that has killed at least 1,000 Americans since 2009.

The drug known as "spice" is at the center of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigation after Chinese chemist Haijun Tian was arrested in March, The New York Times reported Friday.

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The 33-year-old Tian was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in March, two years after a Wisconsin drug dealer was convicted of selling synthetic marijuana and agreed to cooperate with federal law enforcement in 2013, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

The drug Tian manufactured is a synthetic substance significantly stronger than marijuana that is applied to a smokable plant material.

The drug is transported from China in powdered form, in packages labeled fertilizer or industrial solvents.

U.S. wholesalers turn the powder into liquid form, dissolving it in acetone or alcohol – which is then applied to a cigarette-like material and sold.

Spice wholesalers use methods that pose serious health risks when producing the drug, putting it through animal feed troughs, hand-cranked cement mixers and backyard tarps.

One Los Angeles wholesaler charged with drug trafficking was the key to Tian's arrest. The contact agreed to act as an informant, engaging Tian in an email exchange that eventually led to Tian's arrival and prompt arrest in Los Angeles.

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According to the informant, who remains unidentified, Tian's lab in China is the source of 70 percent of the spice sold in the United States.

U.S. officials said Thursday that China's Ministry of Public Security has launched its own investigation into Tian and his affiliates, as the two governments continue to exchange information.

Brandon Erickson, the Wisconsin man arrested in connection to the illegal drug, never met Tian but put investigators on a trail to a Texas supplier and one of its principals, the Los Angeles wholesaler who cooperated as an informant.

Since 2014, the DEA has seized 19 tons of packaged spice and raw materials that could have yielded hundreds of millions of dollars in narcotics sales.

Tian faces three felony counts in federal court in Milwaukee.

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