A file photo of Fentanyl tablet, used for representational purpose only.
| Photo Credit: AP
The fourth floor office of Vasudha Pharma Chem Limited in Hyderabad’s upscale Kavuri Hills thrums with routine work on Thursday afternoon (March 27, 2025). The office floor split by a security desk sees employees of the corporate office go about their tasks. It was from this corporate office of the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm that a consignment of a Fentanyl precursor was allegedly dispatched to New York City in two lots, according to an indictment of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) last week.
U.S. intelligence report flags India, China as key sources of drug trafficking equipment, chemicals
Fentanyl is a habit-forming synthetic opioid that is considered 50-100 times more potent than morphine and has been linked to 52,000 deaths in the U.S. over a 12-month period ending in October 2024. The potency can be gauged from the fact that Indian Central Bureau of Narcotics notifies .1 gm of Fentanyl as commercial quantity and .005 gm as small quantity.
The DOJ indictment cited how 25 kg of a chemical known as N-BOC-4P or tert-Butyl 4-oxopiperidine-1-carboxylate was shipped from India to New York City after the undercover federal agent of Homeland Security Investigations wired $3,125 or $125 per kg in March 2024. The exercise was repeated in August 2024 as part of the sting operation run by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The shipment invoice with the consignment, which forms part of the indictment document, that is partially redacted, lists the Hyderabad, Kavuri Hills address, with pincode 500033.
Fentanyl: The opioid behind Trump’s tariff threats
Two of Vasudha Pharma’s top executives, Tanweer Ahmed Mohamed Hussain Parkar (63) who is Chief Global Business Officer and Venkata Naga Madhusudhan Raju Manthena (48), the Marketing Director, have been arrested in New York on March 20, 2025.
Another executive, Marketing Representative Krishna Vericharla (40) is still at large. The three were indicted earlier by the Department of Justice for manufacturing and distributing a chemical which is a Fentanyl precursor for unlawful import into the United States, and attempting and conspiring to do the same.
Vasudha Pharma that was incorporated in 1994 and is an unlisted public company manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) and Pharma Intermediates. “By 2003-04, the company gained world class expertise and became the largest manufacturer of piperidone and piperidine derivatives,” according to the website.
The indictment broadly painted India’s pharmaceutical companies in unflattering light. “Certain chemical companies in India are global producers and distributors of fentanyl precursor chemicals. These companies supply fentanyl precursor chemicals to the United States and Mexico, among other places, where the chemicals are used to produce fentanyl or other controlled substances,” read the indictment.
The indictment came two days after the United States’ 2025 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) report, a collective effort of the Intelligence Community’s (IC) that banded India with China as countries enabling non-state actors in trafficking narcotics, including Fentanyl.
“Non-state groups are often enabled, both directly and indirectly, by state actors, such as China and India as sources of precursors and equipment for drug traffickers,” says the ATA report adding, “China remains the primary source country for illicit fentanyl precursor chemicals and pill pressing equipment, followed by India.”
China denounces Trump tariff: ‘Fentanyl is America’s problem’
One of the charges against Vasudha Pharma is that “VPC is a chemical manufacturing company located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India with a robust offering of chemicals, including fentanyl precursor chemicals such as N-BOC-4P, and an unabashed marketing strategy in which VPC directly markets and advertises the availability of these precursor chemicals at foreign trade shows, in marketing materials sent to potential customers, and on the company’s website.”
The vasudhapharma.com website includes the listing of the 4-tert Boc-4-piperidone with the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry number 79099-07-03 as one of its products in the piperidone and piperidine derivates. According to scientific literature, one kg of this chemical intermediary yields about 1.83 kg of fentanyl, of which 2 mg can kill a human being.
Published – March 28, 2025 11:00 am IST
