A New Jersey man was sentenced to 12 years in prison after prosecutors say he used Bitcoin and traditional bank wires to pay Chinese suppliers for more than a metric ton of fentanyl-related drugs that flooded U.S. streets. William Panzera, a resident of North Haledon, received the sentence Thursday following his 2025 conviction on drug-trafficking and international money-laundering conspiracy charges, the U.S. Department of Justice said. According to the DOJ, Panzera and his network bought fentanyl analogues, MDMA, methylone and ketamine from China between January 2014 and September 2020, paying suppliers through both conventional transfers and hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin. The sentencing caps a six-year operation that trafficked massive quantities of synthetic opioids into New Jersey, where the drugs were distributed in bulk and pressed into counterfeit pharmaceutical pills. A federal jury found Panzera guilty of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 100 grams or more of furanyl fentanyl and 100 grams or more of 4‑fluoroisobutyryl fentanyl, as well as conspiracy to commit international promotional money laundering. Eight co-defendants linked to the same trafficking network have already pleaded guilty. For crypto-watchers, the case underlines a growing law-enforcement concern: digital assets can ease cross-border payments between U.S. drug networks and China-based suppliers. Chainalysis documented what it calls an “on-chain fentanyl trade” in a 2024 report, finding that a range of actors — including one group of suspected China-based chemical traders — received more than $37.8 million in crypto payments between 2018 and 2023. That on-chain trail has become a key investigative avenue for authorities, even as traffickers try to mix crypto and traditional finance to obscure flows. Experts say the on-chain picture only tells part of the story. Nick Carlsen, a senior investigator at TRM Labs and a former FBI analyst, has pointed to an additional layer of money movement: informal underground banking networks. “All the people taking Ethereum and turning it into Bitcoin through Thorchain and services like that are third parties,” Carlsen told Decrypt. “That's not the North Koreans. Those are the Chinese money launderers.” These informal systems — often tied to organized crime groups — reportedly swap incoming crypto for fiat and move funds around to evade China’s restrictive banking rules and local crypto bans. The Panzera case illustrates the evolving intersection of cryptocurrency, international supply chains, and illicit markets: despite China’s restrictions on crypto, Chinese suppliers remain a primary global source for fentanyl precursors, pill presses and counterfeiting equipment, while crypto payments and underground banking help traffickers transact at scale. The DOJ’s conviction and the Chainalysis findings both highlight why blockchain analytics and cross-border cooperation are increasingly central to disrupting these networks. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

#BTC #ETH