Black cocaine
Black cocaine (
base or cocaine hydrochloride
with various other substances. These other substances are added
- to camouflage the typical appearance (pigments and dyes, e.g. charcoal),
- to interfere with color-based drug tests (mixing thiocyanates and iron salts or cobalt salts forms deep red complexes in solution),
- to make the mixture undetectable by drug sniffing dogs (activated carbon may sufficiently absorb trace odors).
Since the result is usually black, it is generally smuggled as
methylene chloride[3] or acetone. A second process is required to convert cocaine base into powdered cocaine hydrochloride.[3]
It was reported that in the mid-1980s Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet ordered his army to build a clandestine cocaine laboratory in Chile where chemists mixed cocaine with other chemicals to produce what Pinochet's former top aide for intelligence Manuel Contreras described as a "black cocaine" capable of being smuggled past drug agents in the US and Europe.[4]
Black cocaine was detected in
Castilla y León.[2]
References
- ^ Branigin, William (April 28, 1999). "Cartels Shipping 'Black' Cocaine; Bricks of Drug Look Like Metal Moldings, McCaffrey Says". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 4, 2012.
- ^ a b Jones, Sam (2 June 2021). "Police in Spain seize 860 kilos of black and odourless cocaine". The Guardian.
- ^ a b Lopez, Jaime (8 September 2015). "Black Cocaine from Colombia: How Does it Turn White?". The Costa Rica Star. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
- ^ Jonathan Franklin, Pinochet 'sold cocaine to Europe and US', The Guardian, 11 July 2006
- ^ Davison, Phil (8 September 1998). "Global alert for undetectable black cocaine". The Independent. Retrieved 12 October 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-12-370859-5. Retrieved 12 October 2010.
- ^ "New Black Cocaine discovered at Barajas airport". Typically Spanish. Feb 19, 2008. Archived from the original on March 14, 2008. Retrieved 12 October 2010.