Canadian-made Fentanyl has gone Global

Edmonton (ATB): Organized crime groups have shifted their efforts away from importing the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl and are now producing it primarily on Canadian soil.

A briefing note prepared for the deputy minister of Health Canada — obtained by media News through an access to information request lays out the changes law enforcement agencies have observed in the illegal market for the drug.

“Superlab interdictions across B.C., Ontario and Alberta suggest that domestic supply is more than sufficient to supply the domestic market,” the note says.

The Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that roughly 44,600 Canadians died of toxic drug overdoses between 2016 and 2023. Four out of every five of the 8,000 overdose deaths Canada recorded in 2023 involved fentanyl.

“The fentanyl threat in Canada has definitely shifted from one of importation to one of domestic production,” RCMP Inspector James Cooke, a member of the police service’s organized crime unit, told media.

Cooke said that shift began roughly in 2019. In May of that year, the Chinese government listed fentanyl as a controlled substance and imposed more regulations on its production and export.

“It is believed this may have prompted the shift from fentanyl and fentanyl analogues being imported into Canada illegally toward domestic production in Canada,” the Health Canada briefing note reads.

Health Canada says it can only take a few grains of fentanyl to kill someone. 

The trend is reflected in drug seizure data collected by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). In 2018, the CBSA seized more than five kilograms of fentanyl on its way into Canada. Last year, the agency intercepted less than a kilogram. (According to Health Canada, it only takes a few grains of fentanyl to kill someone.)

Det. Matthew Dugdale of the Hamilton Police Service’s drugs and gangs’ unit said the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated organized crime’s switch to domestic production.

“During the early days of COVID, it was almost impossible to import anything into the country, legal or otherwise. So criminal organizations weren’t going to let that stop them from being able to sell their product. So they came up with ways to start manufacturing this stuff locally,” Dugdale told media.

The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC) reported in 2022 that organized crime groups had turned from importing fentanyl-related products to purchasing chemical precursors from international and domestic suppliers to make the drug here.

The Canada Border Services Agency seized barrels of a fentanyl precursor chemical called 4-Piperidone in Vancouver on July 16, 2021. (Canadian Border Services Agency)

“[Eighty per cent] of chemicals used in fentanyl production are unregulated and can be procured in Canada or legally imported from China,” the CISC report says.

“Some [organized crime groups] use privately-owned, licensed companies to import chemicals and precursors used in fentanyl manufacturing.”

Some of those legal precursor chemicals can be “unwittingly” diverted into the illicit market by chemical companies, Cooke said.

“They may be importing or I would say stockpiling a source for chemicals domestically and they may not have a full understanding of where the final destination of those chemicals is,” he said. He added that much of the RCMP’s focus on precursors involves working with industry to prevent such diversions.

Eric Hrab, a detective with the Hamilton Police intelligence unit, said fentanyl production has taken off in Canada in part because some precursors can be obtained domestically while the ingredients needed to make cocaine or opium can only be found in certain climates.

“[With] fentanyl, ultimately you’re looking for the obtainment of lab equipment and precursors and you could produce everything from start to finish on your own, regardless of where you are in the world,” he said.

A U.S. congressional committee released a report this spring that said the Chinese government offers tax incentives to companies that export fentanyl precursors.

A photo submitted by the RCMP shows a clandestine drug lab where Mounties say a large quantity of fentanyl was discovered in Mission, B.C. in November 2023. (submitted by Mission RCMP)

In recent years, police in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta have cracked down on labs or “superlabs” that crime groups have set up specifically to produce fentanyl.

“We’ve seen them pop up in all shapes and sizes,” Dugdale said.

“I’ve encountered laboratories in rural areas, hidden inside shipping containers or sea crates. We’ve discovered laboratories in residential homes.”