Kash Patel on Joe Rogan: FBI director reveals how India is helping America fight fentanyl disaster; take on China-backed trafficking network | World News

FBI Director Kash Patel has claimed that the United States is working intently with Indian legislation enforcement companies to dismantle what he describes as a China-backed international fentanyl trafficking network. Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Patel alleged that whereas India is not a shopper of fentanyl, it has turn out to be an more and more essential transit level for chemical precursors manufactured in China and handed on to Mexican drug cartels.“They’re going to places like India, and I’m also doing operations in India,” Patel mentioned. “They’re having the Mexican cartels now make this fentanyl down in Mexico still.”Patel claimed that Chinese corporations had been “getting cute” by routing fentanyl precursors by means of third nations, together with India, to evade direct enforcement and scrutiny.

‘No fentanyl deaths in India’

According to Patel, one of many clearest indicators of a focused marketing campaign lies in the place fentanyl deaths are and aren’t occurring. He mentioned the drug is devastating the United States however has not created comparable crises in nations like India, Australia, or Canada.“You don’t hear fentanyl deaths in India. You don’t really hear fentanyl deaths in England, Australia, New Zealand, or Five Eyes partners in Canada,” he mentioned.Patel instructed that the absence of deaths in these areas indicated that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was selectively deploying the fentanyl provide chain towards the United States for strategic functions.“The CCP have used it as a directed approach because we are their adversary,” Patel claimed. “Why don’t we go and take out generations of young men and women who might grow up to serve in the United States military, or become a cop, or become a teacher?”Read: How Kash Patel broke each Indian-American stereotype

Direct engagement with India

Patel mentioned that he had personally reached out to Indian officers and that joint operations between the FBI and Indian legislation enforcement had been now underway. “I literally just got off the phone with the Indian government,” he mentioned. “I said, I need your help. This stuff’s coming into your country and then they’re moving it from your country because India is not consuming fentanyl.”He said that the FBI is working on the bottom in India with “the heads of their government law enforcement authorities” to establish and shut down Indian corporations concerned in importing or redistributing Chinese fentanyl precursors.“We’re going to find these companies that buy it and we’re going to shut them down,” Patel mentioned. Patel additionally laid out a method that features worldwide authorized motion. “We’re going to sanction them. We’re going to arrest them where we can. We’re going to indict them in America if we can. We’re going to indict them in India if we can.”

Patel’s India Connection

Patel’s curiosity in Indian cooperation is not merely geopolitical — it’s private. Born to Gujarati immigrant mother and father who fled East Africa, Patel grew up in a working-class immigrant family and has continuously spoken in regards to the affect of his heritage on his nationwide safety outlook. His rise from federal public defender to Trump-era White House official and now FBI Director has typically been forged by conservative media as a narrative of Indian-American exceptionalism — one which defies conventional liberal narratives of the diaspora. His critics, nevertheless, argue that he has used his id to defend controversial strikes contained in the intelligence institution.

Claims of CCP technique and Canadian rerouting

Patel mentioned that the fentanyl trafficking network has tailored in response to stricter enforcement on the US-Mexico border. According to him, cartels are actually utilizing Canada as a northern entry level for distribution.“They’re flying it into Vancouver,” Patel mentioned. “They’re taking the precursors up to Canada, manufacturing it up there, and doing their global distribution routes from up there because we were being so effective down south.”He additional alleged that China’s financial curiosity within the commerce is minimal and that the true motive is geopolitical sabotage.“They’re not making a ton of money off it,” Patel mentioned. “So it’s really just for that purpose.”

A broader enchantment to Five Eyes allies

Patel said that fentanyl precursors have been detected in Five Eyes nations — the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — despite the fact that the drug itself has not but been broadly deployed in these areas.“The fentanyl itself isn’t being deployed into your country, but it’s there being manufactured,” he mentioned. “The CCP just hasn’t directed it at you yet, and they know that.”He mentioned he has requested allied governments to assist dismantle these manufacturing networks earlier than they turn out to be operational threats.

A world drug disaster — or a focused assault?

According to Patel, over 74,000 Americans died of artificial opioid overdoses in 2023 alone, and the fentanyl epidemic ought to be considered not solely as a public well being emergency however as a “tier one national security threat.”Patel argued that India’s cooperation is essential in confronting what he repeatedly characterised as a CCP-directed marketing campaign to destabilise American society.“India is not the problem,” he mentioned. “But if we don’t get ahead of it, it could become one.”While none of Patel’s claims have but been independently confirmed by Indian or Chinese officers, his remarks recommend a brand new section of worldwide cooperation on drug enforcement — one which locations India on the centre of a rising geopolitical storm.Note: Kash Patel’s statements about India