Arrest Underscores China’s Role in the Making and Spread of a Lethal Drug

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MILWAUKEE — Scores of travelers streamed through Los Angeles International Airport in March, just off a flight from China. But one passenger, a 33-year-old Chinese chemist, never reached baggage claim.

The passenger, Haijun Tian, was arrested at the airport by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, the prize at the end of an elaborate sting operation aimed at stemming the importation and sale of spice, the street name for a family of synthetic drugs that look like marijuana and are sprayed with a dangerous hallucinogenic chemical, then smoked.

Mr. Tian is a leading manufacturer and exporter of the chemicals used to create spice, the D.E.A. says, and his arrest underscores rising concerns that China, with its large and poorly regulated pharmaceutical sector, could become to spice what Colombia or Peru has been for cocaine, or Afghanistan is to heroin....

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URL: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/us/arrest-opens-window-on-chinas-role-in-designer-drug-market.html