Top cop warns fentanyl cartels likely to target Australia
IT’S the drug 100 times more powerful than heroin, with its tiny dose size making it easy to smuggle. And Australia’s organised crime fighters warn global cartels are about to cash in.
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AUSTRALIA’S top cop for organised crime has warned cartels will seek to import a drug 100 times more powerful than heroin into the country because its tiny dose size makes it easier to smuggle in.
Fentanyl deaths have skyrocketed in the US and Canada in recent years and authorities in Australia are on alert to stop widespread use of the drug here.
Deputy Commissioner Karl Kent, the AFP’s new transnational serious and organised crime boss, told the Herald Sun drug cartels peddle fentanyl because they can smuggle it in bulk far easier than with other illegal substances like ice or cocaine.
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“We have seen in other jurisdictions that fentanyl, particularly in Canada and parts of the United States, has become a massive problem in terms of drug associated deaths because of the sheer potency of that particular drug and the high risk of overdose,” Mr Kent said.
“There was a transition from methamphetamine to fentanyl. So almost a shaping of the drug market by the organised crime cartels themselves.
“That is insidious. They have complete disregard for the harm and their only interest is in manipulating a market to generate more wealth.”
Last year a delegation including Victoria Police representatives visited the US and Canada to hear about the fentanyl epidemic there.
They heard users who often think they are taking other drugs, including heroin, cocaine and MDMA, are actually taking substances mixed with fentanyl.
Four people a day are dying from overdoses linked to fentanyl in one neighbourhood in Vancouver.
“With a product like carfentanyl, which is 5,000 times more active than heroin on the human body, it means you can move much smaller quantities and therefore make much more money out of a smaller quantity of that drug than of the same quantity of methamphetamine,” Mr Kent told the Herald Sun.
“That means it is more transportable. You are not moving large bulk.
“You can see the benefit to moving a commodity.”
In Australia fentanyl is often diverted from the legitimate market, from pharmacies for example, into the hands of dealers and users.
“It is produced synthetically for drug treatment, so it could be pharmaceutical type product or redirected pharmaceutical product from the grey market,” Mr Kent said.
“That’s probably more of the risk here at the moment.
“It is certainly a threat we are very aware of and one we will be closely monitoring through the public health network and also through the ACIC’s waste water program.
“If we see that picture change then the, rapid response to that will need to be significant, rapid and well co-ordinated.”