First systematic chemical profiling of cocaine police seizures in Finland in the framework of an intelligence-led approach

Broséus, Julian; Huhtala, Sami; Esseiva, Pierre

doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2015.03.026

Cited by 39 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Broséus et al 34 suggested that the cocaine adulteration with pharmaceutical products tends to be done very close to the production of cocaine or in high levels in the distribution chain. Thus, the WBDE approach could also be tuned to consider typical ways of adulteration of cocaine using levamisole and phenacetin concentration in wastewater.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Illicit Drugs, Metabolites and Adulterants in Wastewater: Monitoring Community Drug Abuse in the Brazilian Federal District during the 2014 Soccer World Cup

Sodré¹,

Souza²,

Feitosa³

et al. 2017

J. Braz. Chem. Soc.

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A multiresidue method was developed to estimate community drug use during two weekends of the 2014 Soccer World Cup via wastewater analyses. Five of the 16 investigated substances were detected in all eight samples. Benzoilecgonine (BE), the major cocaine metabolite, was the most abundant substance (1.9 ± 0.3 to 4.2 ± 0.2 μg L ). COC and BE levels suggested a human consumption origin for the investigated drugs. AE/BE ratios revealed a significant use of smoked crack/free base cocaine. Relationships between the adulterants PHE and LEV evidenced a higher use of crack cocaine in the South-Wing WWTP region. An estimative for cocaine use revealed slightly higher drug consumption during the Soccer World Cup weekends in comparison with a typical weekend in 2012.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Illicit Drugs, Metabolites and Adulterants in Wastewater: Monitoring Community Drug Abuse in the Brazilian Federal District during the 2014 Soccer World Cup

Sodré¹,

Souza²,

Feitosa³

et al. 2017

J. Braz. Chem. Soc.

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“…They result from the analysis of cocaine specimens confiscated by police and customs. Circumstantial information (criminal case number, mass of drugs seized, date and place of the seizure) is also collated [34][35][36]. In this research work, cocaine specimens purchased on Evolution were profiled and then compared to the profiles stored in this database.…”

Section: Illicit Drugs Chemical Analysis and Profilingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By contrast, the cocaine product ordered on December 10th (Order 4) was chemically linked to specimens originating from three seizures confiscated in the Canton de Vaud; two seizures were performed in May and September 2014 in Lausanne and one in May 2013 in Vevey. This chemical link based on profiling means that the specimens were once part of the same physical unit before it was broken up for further distribution [35].…”

Section: 6mentioning

confidence: 99%

Buying drugs on a Darknet market: A better deal? Studying the online illicit drug market through the analysis of digital, physical and chemical data

Rhumorbarbe

Staehli

Broséus

et al. 2016

Forensic Science International

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Darknet markets, also known as cryptomarkets, are websites located on the Darknet and designed to allow the trafficking of illicit products, mainly drugs. This study aims at presenting the added value of combining digital, chemical and physical information to reconstruct sellers' activities. In particular, this research focuses on Evolution, one of the most popular cryptomarkets active from January 2014 to March 2015. Evolution source code files were analysed using Python scripts based on regular expressions to extract information about listings (i.e., sales proposals) and sellers. The results revealed more than 48,000 listings and around 2700 vendors claiming to send illicit drug products from 70 countries. The most frequent categories of illicit drugs offered by vendors were cannabis-related products (around 25%) followed by ecstasy (MDA, MDMA) and stimulants (cocaine, speed). The cryptomarket was then especially studied from a Swiss point of view. Illicit drugs were purchased from three sellers located in Switzerland. The purchases were carried out to confront digital information (e.g., the type of drug, the purity, the shipping country and the concealment methods mentioned on listings) with the physical analysis of the shipment packaging and the chemical analysis of the received product (purity, cutting agents, chemical profile based on minor and major alkaloids, chemical class). The results show that digital information, such as concealment methods and shipping country, seems accurate. But the illicit drugs purity is found to be different from the information indicated on their respective listings. Moreover, chemical profiling highlighted links between cocaine sold online and specimens seized in Western Switzerland. This study highlights that (1) the forensic analysis of the received products allows the evaluation of the accuracy of digital data collected on the website, and (2) the information from digital and physical/ chemical traces are complementary to evaluate the practices of the online selling of illicit drugs on cryptomarkets.

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“…The use of profiling methods has been shown to produce powerful means of establishing links between seizures, thus providing drug intelligence. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] The nine most abundant beings are ecgonine, ecgonine methyl ester, tropacocaine, cocaine, norcocaine, benzoylecgonine, cis-/transcinnamoylcocaine, and 3,4,5-trimethoxycocaine [3,4,8] ; other minor constituents such as ecgonidine methyl ester, 3,4,5-trimethoxycis-/trans-cinnamoylcocaine, cis-/trans-cinnamoylecgonine, also appear but in relatively low levels. Among them, the alkaloid profiling method has gained most wide application.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applicability of ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography‐quadrupole‐time of flight mass spectrometry for cocaine profiling

Liu

Hua

Meng

2016

Drug Testing and Analysis

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For the first time in China, the chemical profiling of cocaine specimens was performed at the National Narcotics Laboratory. An ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS) method was developed and validated for simultaneous analysis of 14 cocaine alkaloids and 5 main adulterants. Among them, ecgonine methyl ester, ecgonine, benzoylecgonine, and norcocaine were identified by comparing with the standard materials; tropacocaine, 3,4,5-trimethoxycocaine, cis-/trans-cinnamoylcocaine were tentatively identified based on the exact masses of protonated molecules and product ions; six unidentified alkaloids of 182/1.47, 316/9.54, 659/9.85, 316/9.87, 420/10.34, and 420/10.85 were marked with 'extracted mass/retention time' for convenience. Minimum sample preparation and analysis time were required, which was suitable for routine analysis. Based on the semi-quantitative data set of 14 alkaloid impurities in 131 linked/unlinked cocaine samples, 50 combinations of pretreatment methods and distance/correlation measurements were tested for their potential discrimination power for cocaine profiling, and Logarithm/Pearson exhibited the best result. After hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), 183 cocaine samples collected from 2011 to 2015 were classified into 7 major groups. Moreover, 37 groups of linked samples were found within and between provinces, which provide intelligence for the case connection and revealing of the distribution networks. Our results highlighted the practical utilities of drug profiling, especially to support the investigation through operational intelligence and to improve the knowledge related to the drug trafficking through strategic intelligence. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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First systematic chemical profiling of cocaine police seizures in Finland in the framework of an intelligence-led approach

Cited by 39 publications

References 18 publications

Illicit Drugs, Metabolites and Adulterants in Wastewater: Monitoring Community Drug Abuse in the Brazilian Federal District during the 2014 Soccer World Cup

Illicit Drugs, Metabolites and Adulterants in Wastewater: Monitoring Community Drug Abuse in the Brazilian Federal District during the 2014 Soccer World Cup

Buying drugs on a Darknet market: A better deal? Studying the online illicit drug market through the analysis of digital, physical and chemical data

Applicability of ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography‐quadrupole‐time of flight mass spectrometry for cocaine profiling

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