Black cocaine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Black cocaine, also known as Coca Negra, is a combination of regular cocaine hydrochloride and various chemicals, such as potassium thiocyanate, usually added at 40% admixture. This renders it undetectable to drug sniffing dogs and the regular chemical tests. Since the result is usually black, it is generally smuggled in as toner in fake IBM brand toner cartridges, fingerprint powder, fertilizer or pigment. The potassium thiocyanate substance is separated out after delivery with a solvent such as acetone and discarded.

The Securtec "Drugwipe test [1]" has been one of a few that have worked in detecting the mixture.

This is not a new process, Black cocaine was detected for the first time in Germany in February 1998.

“	Black cocaine is created by a new chemical process used by drug traffickers to evade detection by drug sniffing dogs and chemical tests. The traffickers add charcoal and other chemicals to cocaine, which transforms it into a black substance that has no smell and does not react when subjected to the usual chemical tests.	”
	— US General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Narcotics Threat from Colombia Continues to Grow (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1999), p. 5., [2]

[edit] Berrios

Eugenio Berrios, a Chilean biochemist who worked for the DINA during Pinochet's dictatorship, has been alleged to have produced black cocaine on orders of Pinochet, who engaged in illegal drug trade ^[1]^[2].