North Carolina's top prosecutor is asking the president for help in the fight against fentanyl. Attorney General Jeff Jackson says criminals are using Chinese apps to launder millions of dollars which fund the fentanyl epidemic in the US. He thinks the president can negotiate a change.
The effort hits home for the Nash family. This past weekend marked four years since Jeff Nash lost his daughter, Amanda.
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"It was a tough weekend. It was. I don’t think it gets any easier," Nash told WRAL.
Nash is one of thousands of fathers who knows what it feels like to lose a child to fentanyl. And he knows what people will say…
"His daughter should have known not to do it. No one forced her to do it. She was a grown woman. She was an adult who made her choices and this was the natural consequence of her choice. And to say that would be right. I understand that. However, two things can be right. It also is right for our federal, state and local governments to do everything they can to keep this poison away from our people,” Nash said.
Fentanyl is the primary driver of the opioid crisis in North Carolina, contributing to over 75% of fatal drug overdoses in recent years. But a small change gives cause for hope. 2025 and early 2026 data from the state office of the medical examiner indicate a potential decline in fentanyl-positive deaths for the first time in years.
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said there is still work to do.
“We’re losing six people a day. I’ve spoken to a lot of families who have lost people. I told them I’ll do whatever I can and one thing I can do is go after the money. If you go after the profitability of a crime, you’ll reduce the prevalence of that crime,” Jackson said.
More than $100 million a week flow through Chinese owned apps to support the sales of fentanyl in the US, Jackson said.
Over the last year, his office got one app called WeChat to agree to be more responsive with investigators and make encrypted spaces on the app more hostile to fentanyl money laundering. But its sister app, Weixin is not subject to US laws and wants the White House to take action.
In a letter to the president, Jackson and five other attorneys general from Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Kentucky and South Carolina urged the president to take action. It states that despite the agreement with WeChat to work with investigators, neither it nor Weixin agree to share data from the ap.
“In practice, this means that law enforcement can only see one side of illegal transactions, shielding Chinese-based users from justice,” the letter said.
Nash wondered why only six attorneys general would support the effort. Jackson said the focus was to get a request to the president that was not political, bipartisan and clear. He believes President Trump has the ability to negotiate with the Chinese to effect change when it comes to money changing hands through its apps.
“I think we recognize that the Chinese government is different than the American government and if the leader of China decided to make a change, that change would be made,” Jackson said.
Nash was reluctant to revisit his pain discussing his daughter’s death, but said it’s worth it if this letter gets people talking or gets any government movement to reduce the flow of fentanyl into the US.
Nash was one of the subjects in the WRAL documentary, ‘Crisis Next Door – The Fentanyl epidemic.’