News (Media Awareness Project) - US OH: Internet Drugs Flood Ohio Mail |
| Title: | US OH: Internet Drugs Flood Ohio Mail |
| Published On: | 2000-03-14 |
| Source: | Plain Dealer, The (OH) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-09-05 00:40:08 |
INTERNET DRUGS FLOOD OHIO MAIL
Mail seizures of Ohio-bound illegal drugs like ecstasy, codeine and
steroids have risen substantially in recent years as more consumers hatch
deals with illicit Web pharmacies overseas, according to U.S. Customs
officials.
Internet chat rooms and Web sites have made it easier for consumers to
contact illegal drug suppliers. Thats causing major headaches for agents
here and for cyber cops manning Customs three-year-old CyberSmuggling
Center in Washington, D.C.
"The pills are coming in and going all over the place - to dealers and
individual use," said Anthony Macisco, agent in charge of the Cleveland
Customs office.
Fly-by-night Web pharmaceutical companies are popping up all over the
world, enabling anyone to buy legal as well as illegal drugs on the
Internet, said Customs spokesman Dean Boyd.
From October 1998 to September 1999, Customs agents intercepted 573
contraband shipments destined for Ohio homes, businesses and apartments,
Macisco said. Of those, 401 contained more than 70,000 codeine, steroid and
ecstasy tablets.
The pace is picking up. In the last five months, agents have made 297 mail
seizures and confiscated almost 37,000 pills.
Customs seized its biggest Ohio-bound ecstasy shipment last December when
it intercepted $500,000 worth of tablets hidden in the gas tank of a BMW
shipped from Germany to Columbus. Four Russian immigrants were arrested
after surveillance of the delivery.
Customs agents dont concentrate on prescription drugs, like Viagra, which
are being bought from unlicensed sources. But Rohypnol - known as a date
rape drug - and ecstasy shipped from a warehouse in Asia are causing alarm.
One underground Thai dealer, known as Dr. Tunic, was downloading computer
orders from the United States until he was caught recently.
His Web site - known as Vitality Health Products - was shut down last month
along with six others. Records also were seized. "So all those messages and
orders are now in our possession, and I think there may have been some from
Ohio," Boyd said.
Local authorities are increasingly worried about ecstasy, a former appetite
suppressant that is becoming popular among Ohio teenagers and young adults
who engage in all-night rave parties.
In pill and liquid form, ecstasy heightens the users sense of energy and
euphoria. It can also cause heart and kidney failure and death.
After Internet contacts are made, suppliers creatively slip their
contraband in among the billions of pieces of mail that flow from other
countries into the United States, Customs officials said.
"They try everything," Macisco said, "from personal envelopes to books,
magazines and CDs and other gifts. It is up to their imagination."
U.S. Customs Service Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said yesterday that the
agency was taking several new measures to curb the abuse and trafficking of
ecstasy.
Steps include the creation of a Washington-based Ecstasy Task Force,
training canines to better sniff out ecstasy tablets and educating parents
and young people about the dangers of ecstasy through Customs Web site:
http://www.customs.gov
Customs seizures of ecstasy jumped from 750,000 doses in fiscal year 1998
to 3 million doses last year. In just the last five months, Customs has
seized nearly 4 million doses of ecstasy.
The demand for ecstasy, which sells for $20 to $40 a tablet, has surged
among young people, Kelly said. A recent federal survey found that ecstasy
use among high school students increased 55 percent from 1998 to 1999.
"Urban locations remain the primary venues for raves, but suburban and
rural communities are also encountering raves and the ecstasy tablets
associated with them," Kelly said.
Agents - assisted by keen-nosed K-9 drug dogs - are able to search only a
small portion of the packages coming into the country. Those containing
contraband are often allowed to slide through for undercover buys in Ohio
and other states.
Some of those cases have been passed on to municipalities like Cleveland
Heights, where undercover drug buys involving marijuana from Trinidad and
opium from Europe have resulted in arrests and convictions in recent years.
Mail seizures of Ohio-bound illegal drugs like ecstasy, codeine and
steroids have risen substantially in recent years as more consumers hatch
deals with illicit Web pharmacies overseas, according to U.S. Customs
officials.
Internet chat rooms and Web sites have made it easier for consumers to
contact illegal drug suppliers. Thats causing major headaches for agents
here and for cyber cops manning Customs three-year-old CyberSmuggling
Center in Washington, D.C.
"The pills are coming in and going all over the place - to dealers and
individual use," said Anthony Macisco, agent in charge of the Cleveland
Customs office.
Fly-by-night Web pharmaceutical companies are popping up all over the
world, enabling anyone to buy legal as well as illegal drugs on the
Internet, said Customs spokesman Dean Boyd.
From October 1998 to September 1999, Customs agents intercepted 573
contraband shipments destined for Ohio homes, businesses and apartments,
Macisco said. Of those, 401 contained more than 70,000 codeine, steroid and
ecstasy tablets.
The pace is picking up. In the last five months, agents have made 297 mail
seizures and confiscated almost 37,000 pills.
Customs seized its biggest Ohio-bound ecstasy shipment last December when
it intercepted $500,000 worth of tablets hidden in the gas tank of a BMW
shipped from Germany to Columbus. Four Russian immigrants were arrested
after surveillance of the delivery.
Customs agents dont concentrate on prescription drugs, like Viagra, which
are being bought from unlicensed sources. But Rohypnol - known as a date
rape drug - and ecstasy shipped from a warehouse in Asia are causing alarm.
One underground Thai dealer, known as Dr. Tunic, was downloading computer
orders from the United States until he was caught recently.
His Web site - known as Vitality Health Products - was shut down last month
along with six others. Records also were seized. "So all those messages and
orders are now in our possession, and I think there may have been some from
Ohio," Boyd said.
Local authorities are increasingly worried about ecstasy, a former appetite
suppressant that is becoming popular among Ohio teenagers and young adults
who engage in all-night rave parties.
In pill and liquid form, ecstasy heightens the users sense of energy and
euphoria. It can also cause heart and kidney failure and death.
After Internet contacts are made, suppliers creatively slip their
contraband in among the billions of pieces of mail that flow from other
countries into the United States, Customs officials said.
"They try everything," Macisco said, "from personal envelopes to books,
magazines and CDs and other gifts. It is up to their imagination."
U.S. Customs Service Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said yesterday that the
agency was taking several new measures to curb the abuse and trafficking of
ecstasy.
Steps include the creation of a Washington-based Ecstasy Task Force,
training canines to better sniff out ecstasy tablets and educating parents
and young people about the dangers of ecstasy through Customs Web site:
http://www.customs.gov
Customs seizures of ecstasy jumped from 750,000 doses in fiscal year 1998
to 3 million doses last year. In just the last five months, Customs has
seized nearly 4 million doses of ecstasy.
The demand for ecstasy, which sells for $20 to $40 a tablet, has surged
among young people, Kelly said. A recent federal survey found that ecstasy
use among high school students increased 55 percent from 1998 to 1999.
"Urban locations remain the primary venues for raves, but suburban and
rural communities are also encountering raves and the ecstasy tablets
associated with them," Kelly said.
Agents - assisted by keen-nosed K-9 drug dogs - are able to search only a
small portion of the packages coming into the country. Those containing
contraband are often allowed to slide through for undercover buys in Ohio
and other states.
Some of those cases have been passed on to municipalities like Cleveland
Heights, where undercover drug buys involving marijuana from Trinidad and
opium from Europe have resulted in arrests and convictions in recent years.
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