Fentanyl Cash Laundering and the Role of Chinese Nationals. Josh Birenbaum (Foundation for Defense of Democracies) discusses with John Batchelor the challenge of laundering the enormous amounts of cash generated by fentanyl drug smugglers and drug lords. This multibillion-dollar process often utilizes Chinese nationals residing in the United States. Because of capital controls imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), diaspora populations use internet chat rooms and WeChat to find opportunities to access dollars. Drug cartels capitalize on this by giving the Chinese nationals money to spend lavishly, thus laundering the drug cash. While these individuals may know they are circumventing CCP controls, they usually do not know the illegal origin of the funds which ultimately finance the cartels.