The fentanyl crisis should serve as a warning here. Precursors can be made in labs elsewhere and smuggled in and assembled in a lab of nearly arbitrary quality

The fentanyl crisis should serve as a warning here. Precursors can be made in labs elsewhere and smuggled in and assembled in a lab of nearly arbitrary quality if a hostile nation state was motivated. Perhaps $20k isn't enough but $20M is tiny for a government sponsored program and more than enough to cause catastrophic damage.