North and South Carolina attorneys general launch bipartisan effort to tackle fentanyl trafficking and money laundering in Charlotte.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced a bipartisan initiative Monday targeting Chinese tech giant WeChat for allegedly facilitating money laundering connected to fentanyl trafficking in the United States.
“WeChat is essentially helping to bankroll the fentanyl epidemic. This must stop,” Jackson said during the announcement.
The effort, joined by five other state attorneys general, including South Carolina’s Alan Wilson, accuses WeChat of inadequate measures to combat illegal financial transactions that support drug trafficking.
“Evidence strongly suggests that WeChat has allowed itself to become an enormous digital pipeline for money laundering that fuels the fentanyl trade,” Jackson said.
The coalition has issued a demand letter giving the company 30 days to detail specific actions it’s taking to address what officials describe as rampant money laundering on the platform.
“We need answers. We need them now,” Wilson said.
“If they don’t comply with our request, we believe that we have a range of options for escalation,” Jackson said. “For a number of reasons, we’re choosing not to detail what those options are, but we strongly encourage them to respond.”
The initiative aims to disrupt the financial networks supporting fentanyl distribution, which officials believe will help reduce the flow of the deadly drug into American communities, including Charlotte, with CMPD Lt. Robert Sprague, who works in investigations, also present for the press briefing in support.
“While CMPD’s Vice unit and others within our organization do an excellent job investigating and seizing these operations, this type of activity occurs across the country and internationally,” Lt. Sprague said, “often passing through surrounding jurisdictions before ultimately reaching Charlotte.”
Barbara Walsh, representing the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, is among the hundreds of thousands of people estimated to be impacted by the fentanyl crisis in the United States. She says she lost her daughter, Sophia, an Appalachian State University graduate, in 2021 after Sophia drank from a water bottle laced with fentanyl.
“You don’t really recover from this, as a family,” Walsh said. “Siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, husbands, wives. It is forever, and if we could stop one person from dying, which means one family won’t be traumatized and deal with this for the rest of their life.”
She expressed hope that the attorneys general’s efforts would prevent other families from experiencing similar tragedies.
“If we can disrupt the money laundering, you can disrupt the distribution of deadly fentanyl in this state,” Walsh said.
RELATED: ‘I want them to understand the urgency’ | NC Gov. Stein on efforts to end fentanyl crisis
This announcement comes on the heels of North Carolina Governor Josh Stein’s recent visit to Charlotte, where he pushed for funding for a fentanyl control unit. During a news conference, Stein was joined by CMPD officials and individuals impacted by the fentanyl crisis, including Debbie Dalton. Dalton, who lost her son Hunter to fentanyl in 2016, shared her heartbreaking story, emphasizing the deadly and unpredictable nature of the drug.
“It took hardly a minute for my 6’3″, very healthy son to have a heart attack,” Dalton said. “That’s the thing with fentanyl. You don’t see it coming, but it’s coming. It’s relentless, and it’s killing our young people, and nobody is safe from it.”
The proposed fentanyl control unit, which Stein has advocated for since his tenure as attorney general in 2023, would include drug agents and prosecutors dedicated to investigating drug rings statewide and stopping the flow of narcotics into North Carolina communities. Despite Stein’s persistent efforts, the unit has not been included in the final state budget, including this year’s Senate budget proposal.
Stein urged the legislature to consider the urgency of the situation, noting that the House is currently deliberating its budget. He highlighted the need for additional resources, stating that the proposed unit would cost a couple of million dollars annually, a sum he believes is within the General Assembly’s capacity. While the Senate’s budget plan includes funding for 10 additional prosecutors and five legal assistants for Mecklenburg County, marking the first significant staffing increase for the DA’s office in nearly 15 years, Stein stressed the need for more focused efforts on fentanyl.
At the recent meeting, CMPD officials reported receiving 600 overdose calls so far in 2025, an 11% increase from the same period in 2024. This statistic underscores the growing urgency to address the fentanyl crisis and the importance of the upcoming bipartisan effort announced by Attorneys General Jackson and Wilson.
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