The US Justice Department has indicted four Chinese companies and eight individuals on charges related to the production of fentanyl, a painkiller blamed for overdose deaths, in the United States.

The department announced on Friday that a chemical company based in Wuhan in Hubei Province was among those indicted.

The department alleges three executives of the company shipped more than 200 kilograms of materials used to make fentanyl from China over the past 8 months, with the intent that the chemicals would be used to produce the drug.

US authorities arrested two of them after they were expelled from Fiji on June 8.

The department says the indictments are the first against Chinese companies and nationals for trafficking fentanyl ingredients into the US.

A department official said at a news conference that the cases break new ground by attacking the fentanyl supply chain at its origin.

About 70,000 people are estimated to have died of fentanyl overdoses in the US in 2021.

Last Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for China's cooperation in cracking down on the chemicals when he met Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Beijing.