Made in Oklahoma, Dependent on China

Customs records reveal the Chinese industrial backbone behind a major Oklahoma kratom operation, while its private financing and ultimate ownership remain only partly visible

A Miami News-Digest Consumer and Business Investigation

A small blue bottle manufactured in Broken Arrow may carry an Oklahoma address, but the industrial system behind it stretches from the forests of Indonesian Borneo to factories in Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Shandong, through the ports of Ningbo and Shanghai, across the Pacific to Los Angeles and Long Beach, and finally inland to northeastern Oklahoma.

The clearest documented example is Botanic Tonics LLC, manufacturer of the nationally distributed feel free line of kratom-and-kava products.

Botanic Tonics says that its green-vein kratom leaf is sourced from Indonesia and that its finished products are manufactured at its Oklahoma facility. The company describes the plant as Indonesian, the ingredients as globally sourced, and the final product as crafted in an FDA-registered facility in the Tulsa area.

That is only part of the supply chain.

U.S. maritime records show that the bottles, caps, gift boxes, cartons, beverage-processing equipment, filling-machine parts, washing equipment, and at least one large stainless-steel production tank used by the Oklahoma operation have come from China.

The evidence does not presently establish that the Chinese government, a Chinese company, or a Chinese investor owns Botanic Tonics. It does not establish that the kratom leaf or active alkaloids used in feel free products originate in China.

What it does establish is substantial operational dependence on Chinese manufacturing.

China may not own the Oklahoma production line, but Chinese companies have supplied much of the physical infrastructure that allows that production line to operate.

What the records establish

The Oklahoma operation can be divided into three principal layers:

The botanical layer: Kratom leaf sourced from Indonesia, with kava originating in the South Pacific.

The industrial layer: Bottles, caps, cartons, packaging, washing equipment, filling components, and production tanks supplied by Chinese companies.

The financial and corporate layer: A Delaware-organized company with a major Oklahoma manufacturing facility, a California address listed in federal securities filings, private American investment entities appearing in court records, and a group of unidentified private investors.

That structure is more complex than either “made in Oklahoma” or “imported from Indonesia” suggests.

Botanic Tonics itself says that it expanded its Broken Arrow operation from approximately 30,000 square feet to 93,250 square feet, creating a combined production, fulfillment, and distribution hub.

The company’s growth in Oklahoma appears to have been accompanied by an extraordinary increase in its purchases from China.

The bottles began arriving through a Hong Kong supplier

One of the earliest clearly documented Chinese supply relationships involved GAC Life LLC doing business as Botanic Tonics, a name appearing in customs records at the Broken Arrow address.

Between October and November 2022, GAC Life received five recorded shipments from Rockwood & Hines Glass Group Limited, which listed a Hong Kong business address. 

The cargo originated in China and was described as:

Glass bottle 60ml, gift box, carton, cap.

The five entries represented eight containers and approximately 155,104 kilograms of gross cargo weight, according to the customs-data compilation.

These were not incidental office supplies. The 60-milliliter, or approximately two-ounce, bottle is central to the commercial form in which feel free tonic is marketed.

The Chinese supply relationship therefore reaches directly into the product’s physical identity: its bottle, cap, box, shipping carton, shelf presentation, and single-shot format.

Hong Kong is a separate customs jurisdiction from mainland China, and a Hong Kong business address does not automatically identify where a company’s factory is located. In these records, however, the stated country of origin was China, and the cargo departed through Ningbo.

Shanghai became the dominant supplier

The packaging relationship later shifted or expanded to Shanghai Wangyue Industrial Co. Ltd.

Customs databases identify Shanghai Wangyue as a China-based supplier whose leading American trading partner is Botanic Tonics. 

Its related importer names include:

Botanic Tonics LLC

GAC Life LLC

GAC Life doing business as Botanic Tonics–Sims

Sims Global Solutions

The appearance of these names in the same trade network does not, by itself, establish that they are all legally owned by the same party. It does show that they have been used as consignee, importer, or notification names in shipments connected to the Broken Arrow operation.

The records describe a sustained commercial pipeline rather than an occasional purchase.

As of July 12, 2026, the Shanghai Wangyue customs profile listed 168 shipments involving four principal importer names. Botanic Tonics was identified as its top partner. The database attributed 297 containers and approximately 5.75 million kilograms in aggregated gross shipment weight to the Botanic Tonics name alone.

Those figures are customs-database aggregates, not audited company financial statements. Gross cargo weight may include pallets, containers, protective material, and other packaging. It should not be interpreted as the weight of finished consumer products or used to calculate sales revenue.

The volume nevertheless demonstrates a deeply established supplier relationship.

A separate importer profile listed 241 Botanic Tonics shipments from ten trading partners as of July 12, 2026. Shanghai Wangyue and a variant spelling of the same company occupied the two leading positions among the listed suppliers. The principal foreign ports were Ningbo and Shanghai. 

A July 2026 shipment shows the route

One sample bill of lading dated July 12, 2026, describes a shipment of glass bottles and caps from Shanghai Wangyue to Botanic Tonics’ Broken Arrow address.

The record identified:

Place of receipt: Shanghai, China

Country of origin: China

Foreign port: Shanghai

Cargo weight: 19,380 kilograms

Quantity: 21 packages

Container: A 40-foot general-purpose container

Oklahoma consignee: Botanic Tonics LLC, 13105 East 61st Street, Broken Arrow

House carrier: China International Freight Co. Ltd.

Vessel: HMM Emerald

The manifest shows a direct industrial route from a Shanghai supplier, through an international freight company and Pacific shipping network, to an Oklahoma production address.

Other recorded shipments departed from Ningbo and entered through Los Angeles or Long Beach before moving inland.

This is the practical logistics chain:

Chinese factory or exporter → Shanghai or Ningbo → Pacific container vessel → Los Angeles or Long Beach → rail or truck transportation → Broken Arrow manufacturing facility

The public records do not identify which inland carrier transported every container from California to Oklahoma. They do identify the Oklahoma consignee and the Chinese origin of the cargo.

China supplied more than packaging

The China relationship is not limited to disposable bottles and cardboard.

In August 2022, Botanic Tonics received a washing machine from Suzhou Planet Machinery Co. Ltd., located in Jiangsu Province, China. In January 2023, the same supplier sent spare parts for beverage-filling equipment to the Broken Arrow address.

Those shipments show that Chinese equipment was being integrated into the Oklahoma production process itself.

In April 2026, Botanic Tonics received a 5,800-kilogram shipment described as a stainless-steel tank from Jinan Cassman Machinery Co. Ltd. The shipment originated in China, was received at Qingdao, and identified the Broken Arrow facility as the importer.

A stainless-steel tank weighing nearly six metric tons is capital equipment, not routine packaging. Depending on its configuration, such equipment may be used for storage, mixing, holding, fermentation, extraction, or beverage processing.

The customs description does not specify its precise function, so the tank should not be characterized more narrowly without its purchase order or technical specifications.

Taken together, the records show China supplying multiple stages of the Oklahoma operation:

Product packaging

Beverage-handling equipment

Washing equipment

Filling-machine components

Stainless-steel processing or holding equipment

Freight and export logistics

The Oklahoma facility does not merely place an imported Indonesian plant into an American-made container using an entirely domestic production line. The public record shows that the production line itself contains Chinese industrial inputs.

Borneo supplies the plant

The botanical supply chain points elsewhere.

Botanic Tonics says it uses green-vein kratom leaf sourced from Indonesia. It also says that its classic tonic contains Indonesian kratom standardized by alkaloid content.

Indonesia’s Executive Office of the President has described West Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, as the center of the global kratom trade. In a 2022 statement, the office said Indonesia was believed to supply more than 90 percent of the world’s kratom, with 11,384 hectares under cultivation across 282 West Kalimantan villages. It reported that approximately 200,000 households depended upon the industry and that 400 tons had been exported to the United States by July 2021. Those are Indonesian government figures rather than an independent audit, but they establish the trade’s acknowledged scale and geography.

The records therefore support a triangular production model:

Borneo grows the leaf. China supplies substantial portions of the industrial system. Oklahoma turns the imported components into a nationally distributed finished product.

The exact identity of Botanic Tonics’ principal Indonesian farms, cooperatives, processors, and exporters has not been fully disclosed publicly.

Commercial trade databases associate the Broken Arrow address with Indonesian exporter PT Silah Meh Nuan, but the free public records reviewed do not reveal enough of the underlying transaction to establish whether that company remains Botanic Tonics’ principal supplier, supplied a single experimental load, or operated through an intermediary.

Supplier invoices, FDA Prior Notices, certificates of analysis, Indonesian export documents, and U.S. Customs entry records would be required to reconstruct the botanical chain lot by lot.

Hong Kong is part of the broader American logistics network

The broader U.S. kratom market has also used Hong Kong as a major transshipment point between Indonesia and America.

Hong Kong Customs reported four major seizures involving material shipped from Indonesia to America through Hong Kong:

More than 2.5 tonnes in 2021

Approximately 52 tonnes in 2022

Approximately 20 tonnes in 2023

Approximately 14.5 tonnes in 2024

Together, those seizures involved approximately 89 tonnes of Indonesia-origin material traveling toward America through Hong Kong.

These seizures do not establish that any of the cargo was destined for Oklahoma or Botanic Tonics. The Hong Kong releases identified America as the destination but did not publicly name the ultimate U.S. buyers.

They do establish that China-related logistics have played a recurring role in the larger Indonesia-to-America kratom trade.

They also demonstrate how the country appearing on a shipping document can obscure the underlying geography. 

A product may be:

Grown in Indonesia

Processed near Pontianak or Jakarta

Loaded or consolidated through Singapore

Transshipped through Hong Kong

Entered through a California port

Received by a U.S. freight intermediary

Delivered to a manufacturer in another state

A simple “country of origin” entry may not reveal every company that handled, financed, stored, or transported the cargo.

Does China finance the Oklahoma operation?

The public evidence does not currently support that conclusion.

There is an important difference between supplying an operation and financing or owning it.

Every purchase of Chinese bottles, boxes, machinery, and tanks sends operating or capital money to Chinese suppliers. Those expenditures help finance the overseas industrial side of the supply chain in the ordinary commercial sense.

But that is not the same as a Chinese company taking an ownership interest, making a corporate loan, extending supplier credit, securing company assets, or directing management.

No reviewed customs record discloses whether Botanic Tonics paid its Chinese suppliers before shipment, upon delivery, through a letter of credit, under extended payment terms, or through equipment financing. Customs manifests generally identify goods, parties, weights, ports, and carriers, not the complete payment agreement.

Without invoices, banking records, purchase contracts, or UCC financing statements, it cannot be said that a Chinese supplier or bank financed the Broken Arrow facility.

The company raised private equity, but the investors remain largely occult 

Botanic Tonics filed a federal Form D with the Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2024.

The filing described Botanic Tonics as a Delaware limited-liability company organized in 2020. It listed the company’s principal place of business in Calabasas, California, even though the company presents Broken Arrow as its headquarters and principal manufacturing center. The filing named Jerry W. Ross as manager and identified Cameron Korehbandi and Sandro Starna as executive officers.

The company disclosed a planned $25 million equity offering under Rule 506(b). 

As of the filing date, it reported that:

The first sale had occurred on November 7, 2024.

Approximately $2,427,676 had been sold.

Approximately $22,572,324 remained available.

Twenty-eight investors had participated.

The minimum outside investment was $5,000.

No sales commissions or finder’s fees were reported.

The Form D did not publicly identify those 28 investors or their nationalities.

In January 2025, beverage-industry publication BevNet reported that Botanic Tonics had secured a $25 million internal investment and that the funding came from existing members of the company’s capitalization table. The company declined to provide the full investor list.

That leaves a significant transparency gap.

The available evidence does not identify a Chinese investor. It also does not permit the public to independently determine the citizenship, domicile, or beneficial ownership of every private investor.

The absence of disclosed Chinese ownership is not proof that no investor has any Chinese connection. It means only that such a connection has not been established by the records presently available.

The publicly visible ownership interests point to the United States

Federal court filings provide additional information about the company’s interested parties.

In litigation involving Botanic Tonics, the company identified JW Ross, Hydra623 Holdings LLC, and Anthos Capital V, L.P. as interested parties.

Anthos Capital describes itself as an investment firm headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and focused on consumer and technology companies.

Those disclosures point toward American founders, holding companies, and investment capital rather than verified Chinese ownership.

The records do not disclose each party’s exact percentage of ownership, voting rights, preferred equity, board powers, liquidation rights, or beneficial investors. A notice of interested parties is not a complete capitalization table.

Still, the known ownership and investment evidence is materially different from the Chinese supplier evidence:

Chinese companies are clearly documented as vendors.

American individuals and investment entities appear in the available ownership and financing records.

No Chinese company has been publicly identified as an equity owner, manager, secured lender, or controlling party.

The responsible conclusion is therefore not that China owns the Oklahoma business.

The evidence supports a narrower but still consequential finding: a privately financed American company operating a major Oklahoma manufacturing facility has built substantial parts of its production and packaging system around Chinese suppliers.

A web of company names

The customs record does not consistently use only the name Botanic Tonics LLC.

Related entries have appeared under:

GAC Life LLC

GAC Life LLC doing business as Botanic Tonics

GAC Life doing business as Botanic Tonics–Sims

Botanic Tonics LLC

Sims Global Solutions

Shanghai Wangyue’s customs profile lists all four principal importer names within the same trading network.

That does not prove an attempt to conceal ownership. Companies routinely use former names, assumed names, affiliated entities, freight intermediaries, distribution contractors, and notification parties.

It does mean that a complete investigation cannot search only for “Botanic Tonics.” Each name must be checked against:

Delaware and Oklahoma formation records

California foreign-company registrations

Assumed-name filings

UCC financing statements

Trademark records

Customs entries

Food-facility registrations

Lawsuit disclosures

Warehouse and freight records

The corporate structure crosses at least three states. The company is organized in Delaware, listed a California principal address in its SEC filing, and conducts major production and distribution activity in Oklahoma.

What about other Oklahoma processors?

Botanic Tonics is not necessarily the only kratom processor or distributor operating in Oklahoma.

In April 2026, a Tulsa commercial real-estate report identified CBK TM LLC as a kratom-and-kava processor and distributor that leased 38,896 square feet at 7700 East 38th Street in Tulsa.

The publicly indexed records reviewed for this investigation did not identify CBK TM’s beneficial owners, consumer brands, foreign suppliers, Chinese vendors, Indonesian exporters, or customs history.

CBK TM should not be confused with similarly named companies in California, Canada, or other industries without corroborating addresses or ownership information.

At present, Botanic Tonics provides the strongest documented Oklahoma-to-China trade trail because its Broken Arrow address repeatedly appears as consignee for Chinese packaging and equipment.

The active-ingredient question remains unanswered

The customs evidence establishes Chinese packaging and manufacturing infrastructure.

It does not establish that China supplied Botanic Tonics with:

Kratom leaf

Mitragynine extract

Purified 7-hydroxymitragynine

Semisynthetic kratom alkaloids

A precursor intended for conversion into concentrated 7-OH

The company says its kratom leaf comes from Indonesia and characterizes its products as using natural leaf rather than synthetic 7-OH.

The Chinese shipments visible in the reviewed records are overwhelmingly described as bottles, caps, boxes, machinery, parts, and tanks.

Unless laboratory ingredients were imported under another company name, brought by air freight, acquired through a domestic intermediary, or described differently in customs documents, the current evidence does not connect China to the active kratom ingredient in feel free.

That caveat is an essential clue...

A strong investigation should expose what the records prove, not convert industrial dependence into an unsupported allegation about chemical origin.

The financial information that remains hidden

To fully determine whether Chinese interests have any financing or ownership role, the following records would be necessary:

The complete capitalization table. This would identify every equity holder, the amount invested, and the class of ownership.

The Rule 506(b) investor schedule. The public Form D gives the number of investors but not their identities.

UCC filings and secured-loan documents. These could identify lenders holding liens against equipment, inventory, accounts, or other company assets.

Supplier agreements with Shanghai Wangyue, Rockwood & Hines, Suzhou Planet Machinery, and Jinan Cassman. These would disclose payment terms, exclusivity, minimum-purchase commitments, credit extensions, tooling ownership, and intellectual-property arrangements.

Equipment-financing documents. The stainless-steel tank and production machinery may have been purchased outright, leased, or financed.

Customs entry summaries and commercial invoices. These would show declared values, import duties, tariff classifications, purchasers, brokers, and payment information.

Beneficial-ownership information for the related LLCs. GAC Life, Hydra623 Holdings, and other associated names should be traced through their formation and amendment histories.

Ingredient purchase records. These would determine whether any alkaloid, extract, flavoring, stabilizer, or processing input entered through a Chinese manufacturer or domestic intermediary.

Until those records are obtained, claims of Chinese corporate ownership or direct Chinese financing would exceed the publicly established facts.

The finding

China is undeniably present inside the Oklahoma kratom supply chain.

It is present in the bottle.

It is present in the cap.

It is present in the gift box and shipping carton.

It is present in the washing and filling equipment.

It is present in the stainless-steel production infrastructure.

It is present in the Shanghai and Ningbo export route and in the freight network delivering those materials to America.

The available evidence does not show China growing the kratom used by the Oklahoma manufacturer. That plant supply points to Indonesia.

It does not show a Chinese business owning Botanic Tonics. The publicly visible investment and interested-party records point primarily to American founders, holding companies, and investors.

It does not show a Chinese bank or supplier financing the Oklahoma operation through a loan, lien, or equity investment.

The strongest factual conclusion is more precise:

A major Oklahoma kratom manufacturer is American-owned based on the presently disclosed evidence, botanically dependent upon Indonesia, and industrially dependent upon China.

The phrase “made in Oklahoma” describes where the components are brought together.

It does not describe where the system came from.

The forest is in Borneo. The bottle and machinery come from China. The private capital runs through Delaware and California. The production floor is in Broken Arrow.

That is the global supply chain behind an Oklahoma product, and it is substantially more complicated than the label suggests.

China has established a significant and increasingly integrated position in Borneo’s agricultural economy, particularly through Chinese-owned palm-oil plantations, mills, warehousing, river-port logistics, equipment, and long-term purchasing relationships. This model gives Chinese companies influence beyond the acreage they directly own. There is not yet sufficient evidence that Chinese interests control West Kalimantan’s kratom farms or principal exporters, but the palm-oil sector demonstrates the infrastructure, financing, and consolidation model through which such influence could develop.

For the Oklahoma supply-chain investigation, this creates a possible four-stage system:

Borneo agriculture → Chinese-linked processing or logistics → Pacific import routes → Oklahoma manufacturing and political investment

The first and final stages are documented in significant detail. The unanswered question is whether Chinese capital or chemical processing occupies the middle of the specific kratom and concentrated 7-OH chain, rather than merely the broader Borneo agricultural economy.