4 ms·

Only slightly related anecdote, happened just last week: My 90 year old family member is having their bathroom renovated. 5 shoebox-sized packages arrive at li

Only slightly related anecdote, happened just last week: My 90 year old family member is having their bathroom renovated. 5 shoebox-sized packages arrive at like 4am, labeled "Shower Door". My relative gets up very early, so they see the package come in. They look at the boxes, think a) Thats not a shower door, and b) I'm not installing shower doors, so my relative opens them. Inside are nondescript bundles of powder. My relative has no clue what it is. They call the contractor, the contractor comes over, takes one look, and calls the cops. It turns out to be 10+ pounds of fentanyl. So clearly someone working with the contractor has a scheme going, where they target elderly, unsavvy people in order to ship hundreds of thousands of dollars of fentanyl in the middle of the night. The subcontractor presumably slips in before the homeowner notices, most people aren't awake at 5am checking building material deliveries. The carrier was just some general shipping company. Not a big name, but not shady either. They had no idea what was being carried. We don't think its the main contractor, because he easily could have gotten away with it. He could have said "Oh this is grout mix" and my relative would have been perfectly happy. I guess its a possibility though. Supposedly the cops are looking into it, so I guess we'll see what happens.

windsurfer 3y ago
10 pounds of fentanyl is enough to lethally overdose about 2 million people.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  > 10 pounds of fentanyl is enough to lethally overdose about 2 million people. I'm not sure what the point of this comment is. Fentanyl is only dangerous if ingested; incidental contact is harmless. That shipment was, in all likelihood, intended for eventual distribution to opiate users, who have a higher tolerance than the general population. Making a comparison of how that would affect a person who has no tolerance is misleading fearmongering, when there was no indication that any person in this story was going to accidentally ingest the substance.
  - scarby2 3y ago
    also it's unlikely to be pure and would likely be split down into a great many individual doses.
  - ketralnis 3y ago
    I don't think they're saying that receiving and touching the box was a danger to the recipient. I think they're just expressing that 10 pounds is a lot and this is not a single casual user just buying enough for themselves and their friends.
  - leptons 3y ago
    > Fentanyl is only dangerous if ingested; incidental contact is harmless. Bullshit. Your hand touches something that had fentanyl powder on it, your finger goes up your nose or in your mouth (most people in the world do this), then what?? Oh, nothing? >Making a comparison of how that would affect a person who has no tolerance is misleading fearmongering, when there was no indication that any person in this story was going to accidentally ingest the substance. I guess let's just ignore the problem, OP was being silly, there's nothing wrong here?? Is that really your line of thinking? What if the elderly person decided to open up one of the powder packages to see what kind of powder was in it, like if it had a smell or something, maybe it's chalk, maybe it's salt - they don't know. In that case they very likely would be dead. Inhaling it if grandpa did cut open one of the packages would likely kill anyone that entered the room. I've never seen anyone be so cavalier about 10 pounds of fentanyl before.
    - lr1970 3y ago
      > I've never seen anyone be so cavalier about 10 pounds of fentanyl before. Fentanyl is deadly in microgram doses, for it makes people stop breezing. Russians weaponized fentanyl into a gas and used it to disable Chechen terrorists in the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 [0]. It was so effective that besides the terrorists some hostages died before an antidote could be administered. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis
petsormeat 3y ago
My parents had a similar experience in their idyllic exurb, where affluent retirees can afford lengthy home renovation projects. A neighbor's multi-car garage had noticeable traffic to and fro, on a country road in a small town where everybody seems to know each other's vehicles. It turns out the contractor was dealing heroin from the garage. I think the scheme worked for as long as it did because, like your case, nobody suspected anything like that in such a location.
jfengel 3y ago
I'm puzzled by the early-morning delivery. If it's being sent through ordinary delivery means, such as a post office, do they ordinarily deliver at 4 AM? If it's being sent through some drug-dealer courier system, is it necessary to go through the charade of dropping it off at a customer's house?

windsurfer 3y ago

10 pounds of fentanyl is enough to lethally overdose about 2 million people.

chimeracoder 3y ago
> 10 pounds of fentanyl is enough to lethally overdose about 2 million people. I'm not sure what the point of this comment is. Fentanyl is only dangerous if ingested; incidental contact is harmless. That shipment was, in all likelihood, intended for eventual distribution to opiate users, who have a higher tolerance than the general population. Making a comparison of how that would affect a person who has no tolerance is misleading fearmongering, when there was no indication that any person in this story was going to accidentally ingest the substance.
- scarby2 3y ago
  also it's unlikely to be pure and would likely be split down into a great many individual doses.
- ketralnis 3y ago
  I don't think they're saying that receiving and touching the box was a danger to the recipient. I think they're just expressing that 10 pounds is a lot and this is not a single casual user just buying enough for themselves and their friends.
- leptons 3y ago
  > Fentanyl is only dangerous if ingested; incidental contact is harmless. Bullshit. Your hand touches something that had fentanyl powder on it, your finger goes up your nose or in your mouth (most people in the world do this), then what?? Oh, nothing? >Making a comparison of how that would affect a person who has no tolerance is misleading fearmongering, when there was no indication that any person in this story was going to accidentally ingest the substance. I guess let's just ignore the problem, OP was being silly, there's nothing wrong here?? Is that really your line of thinking? What if the elderly person decided to open up one of the powder packages to see what kind of powder was in it, like if it had a smell or something, maybe it's chalk, maybe it's salt - they don't know. In that case they very likely would be dead. Inhaling it if grandpa did cut open one of the packages would likely kill anyone that entered the room. I've never seen anyone be so cavalier about 10 pounds of fentanyl before.
  - lr1970 3y ago
    > I've never seen anyone be so cavalier about 10 pounds of fentanyl before. Fentanyl is deadly in microgram doses, for it makes people stop breezing. Russians weaponized fentanyl into a gas and used it to disable Chechen terrorists in the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 [0]. It was so effective that besides the terrorists some hostages died before an antidote could be administered. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

petsormeat 3y ago

My parents had a similar experience in their idyllic exurb, where affluent retirees can afford lengthy home renovation projects. A neighbor's multi-car garage had noticeable traffic to and fro, on a country road in a small town where everybody seems to know each other's vehicles. It turns out the contractor was dealing heroin from the garage. I think the scheme worked for as long as it did because, like your case, nobody suspected anything like that in such a location.

jfengel 3y ago

I'm puzzled by the early-morning delivery. If it's being sent through ordinary delivery means, such as a post office, do they ordinarily deliver at 4 AM? If it's being sent through some drug-dealer courier system, is it necessary to go through the charade of dropping it off at a customer's house?