Deadly opioid is 40 times more powerful than powerful
The video call is granular, but it is clear what the person is trying to sell on the phone: illegal drugs, packed and ready to send to Canada.
The seller, who goes under the name Kim, states that he sells cocaine, menthafetamine, MDMA and Nitazens, a powerful class of synthetic opioids has never heard by most people – but can be 43 times more powerful compared to Phantenil.
CBC journalists secretly ask in a recorded phone call, “It can kill people, okay? So, I just want to make sure that you know that,” CBC journalist asks in a secretly recorded phone call.
“This is the game,” the seller responds.
The seller is one of the 14 people in which the CBC’s Visual Investigation Unit spoke in text messages and phone calls that advertise them for sale, after finding them through advertisements posted by users on major social media platforms such as LinkedIn, X and E-commerce websites.
A CBC news visual investigation tracks how a deadly and super-potent called Nitzens makes his way in Canada, where he has killed hundreds of people. With the support of the open source from investigators in Belingcat, the CBC found hundreds of advertisements for online nightzens, posted on social media and e-commerce sites, and talk to vendors behind them how these deadly drugs are smuggled in Canada.
These advertisements posted in the open contain contact information that keeps the CBC in touch with drug dealers who claim to be part of the international criminal network. The CBC did not buy any illegal substance.
Nitazines, which have never been approved for medical use and are scheduled 1 drugs under the controlled drugs and substance acts, are rapidly changing the drug bust throughout Canada.
Last year, two lab busts in Quebec alone may be responsible for more than a million fake pharmaceutical oxycodone pills, which were actually protonitazepin, a type of Nitazine – or “analog” – according to RCMP.
According to data collected by CBC’s Visual Investigation Unit from coroners across the country, Nitzen has killed hundreds of Canadians in the last four years.
“(North American) is not only the largest consumer of nitazines, but is actually the biggest problem, as it belongs to the number of deaths,” the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education in Pennsylvania said Alex Krotulski in Pennsylvania, Alex Krotulski said, a toxicist laboratory that tests for Nitzen in Canada and America.
“This is actually becoming an established drug class of novel synthetic opioids.”
A more powerful high
Nitaznes are almost not popular as fentanyl and its analogs, but they provide a more powerful high, with which they appeal to drug dealers. Drug users may not even know that they are consuming nitazines, which can be taken in fake pills.
“It makes me angry,” Montreal resident Christian Bovin said after sharing his conclusions after the CBC. Boivin 15 -year -old son Mathis Last year, he died of a Nitazine overdose, which he thought there were oxicodone pills. “(These vendors) do not have a conscience. They are bad people and they just want money … they don’t care about life.”
The story of Mathis is not a different case. Because public-focused statistics combine them as “non-fantenile opioids”, CBC reached Koroners in all 13 provinces and regions to compile data on the total number of total deaths from Nitzens in Canada.
The data received was incomplete – for example, Manitoba provided figures for only 2024 – but indicates that around 400 deaths are directly responsible for Nitzen or suspected to include nitaznes since 2021 in Canada. The correct number of deaths is even more.
Donna Pipsun, a forensic toxicologist at Pennsylvania-based NMS Labs, said, “I guarantee you due to variability in poisoning tests, variability in practices and variability in the availability of funding … (number of deaths).” “If they are not looking for it, you can’t find it.”
According to the available data, the most deaths were in Alberta, with 121 since 2021, followed by Quebec 91 and 81 with BC.
Dan Anasan, Director General of Intelligence and Investigation for Canada Border Services Agency, said, “We are worried that it will continue to grow as a ongoing threat.”
The seller explains how they smuggle drugs
The ways in which Nitazines make their way in Canada are through vendors who post the images of powder with advertising information on social media networks and advertise.
“Online advertisements are how this market works now,” Annon told the CBC.
CBC’s Visual Investigation Unit, with support from open-source Investigator in BellingcatHundreds of advertisements were found in a user-related posts for more than a dozen types of nightgain on social media platforms, including X, Redit, LinkedIn, Behens (a graphic design website owned by Adobe), and e-commerce websites in India such as Exporters India, Dial 4TRADE and Tradindia. They were revealed by dozens in Google image discoveries for keywords related to nitazene analogs.
It often takes only minutes to get the answer after answering the online advertisement. The vendors were in a hurry to share videos of their laboratories and products, even they offer a step-by-step guide to how they would ship drugs in Canada: First, the packages incorrectly, then hiding them inside the playstation 5S, removing them, basketball, chewing and sugar herbal packages. Then they will be sent via a courier or mail.
Previous reporting In Britain, drugs were also hidden in dog food and food supply on this subject.
A seller told a CBC reporter that Nitzin’s shipment can be distributed on the same day on Detroit, Mich, Windsor, ONTS.
“When you talk about importing illegal medicines, you will see some beautiful bizarre levels of creativity.” “They are coming from online marketplace … and they are coming through postal courier.”
When reached by CBC for comment, LinkedIn, Reddit and Adobe removed posts in which advertisements were marked. X did not respond to the request for comment and the flag -based posts still lived at the time of publication.
A Google spokesperson said that it complies with requests to remove legitimate legal from the public and officials.
Dial4Trade and Exporters India, two India-based e-commerce platforms where advertisements were found, told the CBC that they added restrictions to block Nitazine advertisements. Another platform, Trade India said it removed the flagged advertisements.
A global network
It became clear that Nitzen’s vendors are spread all over the world, and are not always to be online who or where they are online.
On the e-commerce site tradindia, next to “Atonitazine Powder”, there was a picture of a brown powder offered by a Chinese Biotech company. On its website, the company states that “nothing is above human health.”
It has an address listed in Shanghai which is not present on the Google map. But the company was in a hurry to convince why it was not known when asked in a secretly recorded phone call.
“It is very dangerous to sell in China,” a person going by Jerry told a CBC reporter during a call with a Mandarin translator. Jerry said he and his associates needed a fake address to make the company real, but also that they could not be discovered by Chinese authorities.
Video inside foreign drug lab
To show that he was a valid distributor, he shared videos from his laboratory – and said that the CBC reporter’s name and date to prove the authenticity of the video – and records of previous shipments for Canada. He even offered to send samples of nitazines for free to test for purity.
But the sellers were not just from China. The CBC spoke to the vendors who claimed to ship from the US, UK, India, even the Philippines.
On the video, a seller said that he shows shipment records from UK which he said that he was going to Grande Prey, Alta for drugs.
Like any global trade, some Niyamin vendors said they were struggling with the influence of American tariffs.
A man representing a company called Umesh Enterprises, who claimed to be out of India, said Nitzen “coming from India …. He said during a call” due to issues with tariffs between the US and China. ” “There is a lot of interruption from China … so we go with India.”
Like many vendors, the speaker admitted that it was illegal to import nightzen in Canada and knew how deadly these synthetic opioids could be.
Dale Sadherland, a resident of Toronto, said, “(these vendors) do not care how many people they take down or how many families were hurt,” said Dell Sadharland, a resident of Toronto, who died in 2022 from an overdose involved in 2022.
“This is very disappointing … We have more rules, more strict punishment.”
In response to the findings of CBC, Canada’s Phentineel Caesar, Kevin Broceu said in a statement, “The emergence of Nitzens, and other highly powerful synthetic opioides, is something that I am worried about and taking very seriously.”
Broceau recently pointed to Bill C -2, or Strong limits actWhich will give more rights to Canada to open the mail and remove obstacles for law enforcement that inspects the mail during an investigation.
Critic of the proposed act Say that it will curb civil freedom. This month, an alliance of more than 300 civil society groups Demand for full return In Bill C -2, warning that it would expand government monitoring.
Do you have any suggestions on this story? Please contact Eric Szeto: eric.szeto@cbc.c.Ca
