Daily Mail

Painkiller bought on dark web kills 60 in 8 months

- By Chris Greenwood Chief Crime Correspond­ent

POLICE fear middle-class profession­als are among those putting their lives at risk by illicitly buying a painkiller 50 times more powerful than heroin online.

At least 60 people have died in Britain in the last eight months after taking fentanyl, in a largely hidden epidemic.

The synthetic drug can be prescribed by a GP but must be closely monitored. But investigat­ors warn it is being bought on the dark web – shady parts of the net that can only be accessed using special software.

Among them are people with ‘jobs, families and responsibi­lities’ who are oblivious to the risks, a source said, warning that it is so strong it is ‘impossible to measure a safe quantity by eye’ and that it is often made in dangerous, uncontroll­ed conditions.

Yesterday Home Secretary Amber Rudd pledged to tackle the ‘terrible blight’ before it causes a crisis like that in the US, where the £45-a-gram drug kills thousands every year.

In April Public Health England issued an alert to warn medical services to be vigilant.

Now the National Crime Agency has warned many more people may have died from the drug and not been identified because coroners were not checking for it. The NCA is trying to trace every customer of a filthy garage laboratory in the North which sold the drug online. It has so far identified 443 customers, including 172 in Britain, at least one of whom died.

Fentanyl can be administer­ed by doctors in a £10million-a-year official industry. It is one of the most powerful opiates, much stronger than morphine or heroin.

An even more powerful version, carfentani­l, which is used to anaestheti­se elephants, has been found mixed with street heroin. This is 10,000 times stronger than heroin and a tiny amount of it can kill. Police have also been warned to be careful as two US officers nearly died after accidental­ly inhaling a tiny amount during a raid.

Ian Cruxton, of the NCA, said many deaths linked to the drug have involved addicts taking it in contaminat­ed heroin, with a hotspot in Yorkshire and the Humber. But he said it is ‘also purchased from the dark web by individual­s who wish to experience its effect as a drug in its own right’. He said it can cause a ‘very sudden death’, adding: ‘With heroin people may slowly fade into unconsciou­sness. With fentanyl people have dropped just like that.’

Another senior investigat­or said: ‘There are people who may have jobs, families, community responsibi­lities, who are buying this class A drug online. The priority is not to criminalis­e them but warn them.

‘Because of the crude way these drugs are made there is a huge risk. You would not walk up to a lock-up garage where some of it is made with no standards whatsoever and dream of buying a sandwich.’

The NCA said the drug was not prevalent in the UK until it started being mixed with heroin late last year. On Monday a 25-year- old man from Gwent was charged in connection with the supply of synthetic opioids. Three men from Leeds have also been charged.

Mrs Rudd said the Government’s new drug strategy will urgently look at what can be done to stop the spread of fentanyl.

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