‘It’s like Amazon’: Illegal drugs advertised online, delivered by Canada Post

It’s like the Amazon for hard drugs: cocaine, heroin and ecstasy, paid for via credit cards and e-transfers, delivered by Canada Post.

For several weeks, CBC Ottawa and Radio-Canada exchanged messages with about a dozen people who were purchasing these drugs online. Eventually one man came forward and offered to talk about his experience.

“The first time I said, ‘Well, that’s not true, that’s a scam,'” John said. CBC has agreed to withhold his real name because he fears the impact his drug use will have on his family and his job.

“You go to the website and it’s very easy.”

We started seeing ads offering pure cocaine along with images of white powder on Facebook and Instagram. Very soon our social media feeds were filled with them.

These narcotics are highly addictive and highly illegal, but advertisements reassure potential buyers that the drugs are tested and distributed safely.

For John, this meant that the drugs he was addicted to were suddenly within easy reach.

“My relationship with this drug is love-hate,” he said. “I dreamed about many things. Cocaine destroyed this dream in a certain way. One of these dreams was to become a policeman.”

John says he had successfully overcome his addiction – until he saw ads on social media.

“So you have this ad, it looks professional. You go to the website and it’s very easy. It’s like Amazon. You have a number of drugs, and you have cocaine,” he said. “I thought, it’s incredible to see it on social media.”

I opened the package and I was like, okay, this is real. This is the real thing, this is real cocaine.– John

Despite John’s skepticism, as ads increased in his feed, old habits caught up with him. He clicked on an ad and ordered a few grams of cocaine.

Very soon he had a Canada Post tracking number. A few days later he received a message that his package had arrived.

He said, “I go to the mailbox. I open the package and I say, OK, this is real. This is real stuff, this is real cocaine.”

John tried the medicine immediately and said it felt cleansing.

“I don’t know if it’s 70, 80, 90 percent, but I know it’s a good thing,” he said.

His experience matches that of many others CBC has spoken with online.

The Canadian Center for Substance Abuse and Addiction warns that cocaine use is very dangerous and can lead to stroke, coma, and in some cases, death.

The additional danger is that the drug may be contaminated with an even deadlier substance: fentanyl.

John decided to have his next purchase tested. A team from Radio-Canada accompanied him to take delivery from his Canada Post community mailbox, and both Radio-Canada and CBC Ottawa were present when the material was tested at a special harm reduction clinic in Quebec.

We’ve known about this for a while, so we thought it was pretty common knowledge.– Maud Choiniere, Quebec social worker

Maud Choiniere, a social worker who conducted trials at the clinic, said a large number of people were bringing in medicines purchased on the open web after seeing advertisements on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

“We’ve known about it for a while, so we thought it was pretty common knowledge,” Choiniere said. “We were surprised at first, but now it’s becoming (common). I mean, I wouldn’t say half of what we test is (purchased online), but I would say it’s a good portion of the drugs we test.”

The test looks for potentially lethal additives. John’s sample tested positive for cocaine, but no fentanyl was found.

CBC spoke to several buyers who left reviews on sites where they purchased the drugs.

Some people said they were less concerned about deadly additives being found in medicines purchased from online sellers. Others said they turned to the sites because they felt it reduced the chances of being caught dealing drugs in public.

CBC Ottawa scrolled through hundreds of ads, which revealed more than a dozen different websites, all selling illegal drugs. Websites operate openly, but their digital infrastructure is nothing.

CBC’s Visual Investigations Unit (VIU) took an in-depth look at the websites in an effort to track their digital footprints and determine their likely location.

“They use all the tools,” said Ivan Angelowski, a forensic analyst at VIU. “You see they’ve basically built a wall that open-source researchers and journalists can’t get into.”

Websites are sophisticated and difficult to track. Their web addresses often change from one day to the next. Their digital information is protected by high-level privacy tools and coding.

“It’s remarkable how much they trust this privacy industry,” Angelowski said. “Some of these privacy tools were created to help regular people… not to be tracked by these big Internet businesses, but they’re basically using those same systems to do criminal things.”

Digital architecture can be complex, but websites work clearly for anyone online.

Advertisements for the drug appear on social media platforms including Instagram and Facebook, which is owned by parent company Meta, which makes more than 90 percent of its profits from advertising.

Meta declined CBC’s interview request. Instead, a spokesperson responded with an email.

“Content that attempts to buy, sell or trade illegal drugs is not allowed on our platforms. We have removed the flagged ads and pages, disabled ad accounts and banned account administrators from running ads in the future,” the spokesperson wrote.

I think it’s a constant battle, because I think it’s a weird game.-Scott Roth, LegitScript

Meta says it uses AI and specialized advisors to flag and block ads. LegitScript is a company that specializes in flagging advertisements that sell illegal content online.

“The scale is absolutely massive in terms of how many ads are being served on these platforms on any given day,” said Scott Roth, CEO of LegitScript. “I think it’s a constant battle, because I think it’s a weird game.”

It’s a game that can’t be won completely, Roth said.

The Canada Post Corporation Act gives Canada Post the authority to inspect mail, other than letters, that it suspects of containing illegal items, including drugs.

Canada Post declined requests for a personal interview, and instead sent an emailed statement to CBC.

“When our postal inspectors confirm that an item contains an illegal drug, they remove the item from the mail stream and turn it over to police,” the Crown corporation wrote.

In 2024, Canada Post removed 5,662 illegal items from a total of 240 million parcels.

CBC Ottawa also spoke to six police officers from different departments with experience in drug investigations. No one had heard of these sites running on the open web. He said any investigation would fall under the jurisdiction of the RCMP.

We are actively targeting individuals and networks profiting from the online sale of illegal substances.– RCMP

CBC contacted RCMP over several weeks. The Canadian National Police Force declined our repeated requests for an interview, but a spokesperson responded in an email.

“Through coordinated investigations, advanced cyber tools, and strong partnerships… we are proactively targeting individuals and networks profiting from the online sale of illicit substances,” the spokesperson wrote.

During our investigation, the same sites selling illegal drugs continued to appear under different web addresses on the open Internet.

After going to a drug testing facility with the CBC, John decides to destroy the drugs. CBC ensured that the drugs were properly destroyed.

“For me, that’s what I had to do to really get myself off this drug,” he said.

John says seeing repeated advertisements on his social media feed has made this difficult, and says this is why he decided to come forward.

“If you have an addiction and you go on social media and you look at it every day, and multiple times every day, it’s going to keep you in that addiction,” he said.