Police in eastern China have busted a cross-border drug trafficking gang that allegedly involved a retired chemistry professor and a younger graduate with a degree in chemistry, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, with users on local social media already calling it a real-life version of Breaking Bad, a popular American crime drama that aired from 2008 to 2013. According to the media outlet, the operation took nearly two years to crack. The probe began back in 2024 when authorities in Shandong province noticed something odd about a pharmaceutical technology company, which bought unusually large quantities of six chemicals used to make etomidate, a strong synthetic drug often found in illicit “zombie vapes”.

According to the report, the drug was placed under strict state control in China in 2023 because high doses can cause serious harm or even death.

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As the investigation progressed, police traced the purchases to a man surnamed Huang, who has a master’s degree in chemistry and background experience in selling e-cigarettes in Shenzhen. The report also mentioned that Huang had worked at the pharmaceutical firm for just three months before walking away.

Investigators soon realised he was using his technical skills to set up an illegal drug operation. They also found that Huang frequently travelled between Shandong and Shenzhen, spending days at a time meeting with a man identified in the report as Wu, a retired chemistry professor from a local college.

The authorities believed that Wu was the ‘Heisenberg’ of this case as he reportedly designed the manufacturing process and used his professional contacts to set up hidden labs in factories across five different Chinese cities, calling it medical research.

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The police later found that they only produced etomidate’s precursor chemicals in China, then shipped them abroad to labs in Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia for final processing.

Police from different nations worked simultaneously to crack the case. They arrested 71 suspects in coordinated raids across those countries and seized roughly 73 kilograms of finished etomidate, five tonnes of active ingredients, and a full setup of laboratory equipment.

Authorities reportedly said that Huang earned over 5 million yuan (about $750,000) from the illegal business. The suspects are currently awaiting trial. Under

The case went viral on Chinese social media, with one user writing, “Zibo Heisenberg.” The user referred to the alias used by Walter White in Breaking Bad.

Meanwhile, as per SCMP, another user commented, “Making drugs must be easy for chemistry experts, but most wouldn’t do it because there are more important things than profits.”