Fentanyl’s deadly chemistry: How rogue labs make opioids by Reuters

A decade into America’s deadly fentanyl crisis, the supply chain fueling the narcotic’s production has grown into a ruthlessly efficient global trade, but one that’s almost a complete black box. Reuters penetrated this clandestine industry to show how astonishingly cheap and easy it is for drug cartels to obtain fentanyl-making chemicals.

This extraordinary feat of explanatory journalism lays out clearly one of the most vexing problems for authorities: the way criminals use creative chemistry to stay one step ahead of regulatory efforts.